2025 and no end to the trend: Europe’s unbroken focus on vertical restraints

On 14 October 2025, the Commission fined fashion companies Gucci, Chloé and Loewe over €157 million for fixing resale prices in breach of EU competition rules, after its investigation revealed that the three companies restricted the ability of independent third-party retailers to set their own online and offline retail prices. 

This decision is the Commission's first resale price maintenance (RPM) decision since its 2018 ruling against Guess and since the publication of the new Vertical Block Exemption Regulation (VBER), confirming that RPM practices have not been forgotten, even after several years, and confirms once again that vertical relationships remain under major scrutiny. 

The Commission’s very recent announcement that it has opened an investigation into Red Bull, although centered on potential abuse of dominance, reinforces the same message. The case concerns Red Bull's relationships with its distributors (Red Bull being suspected of having granted incentives to its off-trade customers to delist or disadvantage competing energy drinks). This shows that the Commission’s scrutiny of distribution relationships is not limited to Article 101 TFEU: depending on market power, such conduct may also raise concerns under Article 102. 

This article aims to provide an update on enforcement actions across Europe since our last review of the topic, offering guidance to companies navigating the complex landscape of vertical agreements.

Parity obligations 

In addition to the clarifications provided by the ECJ on the application of the VBER to exclusive distribution in its Beevers Kaas judgment (see our article), the Court of justice also provided clarifications on the treatment of platform parity clauses in its Booking ruling.

On this topic, the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (“FCCA”) also published the findings of an inconclusive assessment that offers fresh insight into the contractual terms used by dominant platforms (see our article).

The continuous campaign against RPM practices

Since our last round-up, the French Competition Authority (FCA) has handed down two decisions sanctioning vertical agreements, imposing penalties totaling a record amount of more than €1 billion. These two decisions, concerning RPM, bear witness to the FCA's ever-stronger determination to condemn this type of agreement.

In the electrical equipment sector, the FCA imposed fines of €470 million on several manufacturers and distributors for practices involving a “derogation” mechanism – a contractual system allowing distributors to adjust their purchase prices to match end-customer demand for lower prices. The FCA found that the parties had used this tool to align resale prices and effectively fix selling prices to end customers, thus amounting to RPM. The decision also highlights the FCA’s increasing (and worrisome) reliance on internal company documents, including legal analyses, as probative evidence of concerted practices. 

The Autorité also took into account the fact that the companies in question were aware of the anticompetitive nature of their actions, as well as their significant financial power.

In the household appliances sector, fines totaling €611 million were imposed on ten manufacturers and two retailers for so-called “generalised” vertical price-fixing arrangements. In this case, the FCA relied primarily on indirect and circumstantial evidence, such as internal emails and presentations, to establish the existence of RPM agreements between suppliers and their distributors. The FCA's reference to “generalised” agreements, which covered all distributors despite direct “evidence” relating to only some, allowed it to calculate fines based on total sales values, resulting in exceptionally high penalties. Appeals are currently pending.

In addition to the FCA’s decision, the Paris Court of Appeal also upheld two previous RPM decisions, providing interesting insights.

First, it confirmed that minimum advertised price (MAP) requirements can amount to unlawful RPM, consistent with the approach under the revised VBER.

Second, in the Luxottica case, the Court of appeal upheld the penalty imposed by the FCA for RPM and rejected the appellants' argument that maintaining a certain price level was inseparable from the luxury image of its brands. This ruling sends a clear message that luxury positioning must be achieved through other means than resale price maintenance, such as properly structured selective distribution systems.

A similar trend is observed across Europe

In the UK, the CMA has maintained RPM as a key enforcement priority, issuing warning letters across a wide range of sectors and business models, from traditional resale price maintenance and MAP policies to online sales, franchise pricing, and platform-specific restrictions.

In a detailed ruling, the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) confirmed this trend by ruling against Deckers, a supplier of running shoes. The CAT found that Deckers infringed UK competition law through measures that effectively prevented discounting and maintained higher resale prices. In particular, Deckers had restricted retailers’ ability to sell products on clearance sites where higher discounts would typically occur.

Echoing the approach of the French Court of Appeal in Luxottica, the CAT reaffirmed that while brands may design distribution strategies to protect their image - notably through selective distribution - such systems must pursue genuine and legitimate objectives, not serve as a pretext to suppress price competition (see §172). The CAT also reminded suppliers that selective distribution requires transparent, objective, and consistently applied criteria; vague or discretionary standards, introduced after the fact to justify restrictive conduct, will not withstand scrutiny. This could be stricter than the interpretation under the VBER which only requires selection criteria to be “specified”, and non-consistent application is not expressly prohibited. This flexibility applies only when the parties’ market share is below 30%, which is the threshold for the VBER to apply. 

The Supreme Court of the Czech Republic also addressed the topic of selective distribution, ruling on a selective distribution system applied by Chanel acting against unauthorized retailer Notino.

In this case, the Supreme Court was asked to rule on the validity of some of the selection criteria requirements applied by Chanel, such as:

• the requirement that applicants must not have infringed Chanel's trademark rights in the previous three years; and
• the requirement that applicants must have operated at least three physical stores for a minimum of one year.

The retailer claimed that the non-infringement criterion was not objective, as it was up to Chanel to decide whether infringement took place, and that the “Brick and Mortar” requirement was designed to exclude online players from the market.

Reassuringly, the Czech Supreme Court found both criteria legitimate and non-discriminatory.

Following the trend against RPM, the Bundeskartellamt imposed fines totaling almost 6 million euros on Sennheiser electronic SE & Co. KG and Sonova Consumer Hearing Sales Germany GmbH for vertical price fixing in May 2025. It considered that since at least 2015, Sennheiser employees agreed on measures for setting end consumer sales prices for “premium headphones” with their authorised dealers in Germany. The BkA found that Sennheiser maintained continuous surveillance of retailers' pricing through online price comparison services and, in certain instances, using specialised software. The company took action particularly when consumer prices fell significantly below the recommended retail price or following retailer complaints regarding insufficient pricing levels. When Sennheiser intervened in such cases, the contacted retailers typically consented to increase their consumer prices or made upward price adjustments. Within the organisation, staff employed coded language to describe these coordinated actions, framing them as adherence to selective distribution requirements. 

In Italy, there is a clear trend on the part of the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) in proceedings concerning resale price maintenance (RPM) practices to favor the closure of proceedings by accepting the commitments proposed by the undertakings concerned. This trend is clearly evident in proceedings I-813 (18 April 2018), I-854 (3 December 2021) and A-550 (5 July 2022), all of which concluded with the AGCM accepting the commitments proposed by the companies involved.

The Authority considered the commitments presented by the companies in the above-mentioned proceedings to be adequate to avert the negative effects of the unlawful conduct.  This trend could also be explained by  the Authority's willingness  to combat RPM practices in a timely manner, without wasting procedural resources that could be used to investigate and sanction more serious violations.

On 14 October 2025, the AGCM also opened an investigation into DJI B.V.,  the global market leader in the production of civil drones, and Nital S.p.A., the distributor responsible for importing these products into Italy. 

The AGCM received a report from an independent drone retailer alleging that there was a vertical agreement between DJI, Nital and retailers to fix the resale prices of DJI drones in Italy. In particular, DJI and Nital monitored any discrepancies between the prices charged online by retailers and those displayed on Nital's website. They then intimidated and threatened retailers undercutting the price to suspend supply, as well as prohibiting retailers from purchasing abroad (parallel imports). This was to prevent them from offering discounts by leveraging lower prices from foreign operators.

If, at the end of the investigation, the AGCM concludes that an infringement occurred, it will be interesting to see whether the Authority opts to close the case with commitments from the companies - consistent with recent practice - or instead continue with the full proceedings, scheduled to conclude on 30 June 2027.

In Hungary, the Competition Authority (GVH) found that MANOK-Növényorvos Kft. committed an infringement of competition law by contravening provisions in its Plant Protection Equipment Testing Station (NGEÁ) franchise system that restricted mandatory plant protection equipment inspection activities on a territorial basis, and determining prices for mandatory plant protection equipment inspection activities. This constituted engaging in market division and price fixing between 2016 and 2023.

The GVH considered that the provisions in franchise agreements, the indicative price lists published by MANOK-Növényorvos Kft., and the price commitment introduced through the director's instruction on partner transfer for cases when franchisees acted outside their operating territories constituted price fixing. The GVH imposed a fine of HUF 5,250,000 (cca. EUR 13,100) on the undertaking.

In another decision, the GVH sanctioned Paradox Security Systems (Bahamas) Ltd. and Power Biztonságtechnikai Kereskedelmi Kft. for infringment of EU competition law in the security technology equipment market. The infringements consisted of three practices: restricting cross-border passive sales, determining minimum resale prices for installer prices, and restricting the display of end-user prices on the internet thereby restricting online sales, all part of a unified and continuous infringement from 2009 to 2018. The Authority emphasized that both parties' highest-level management was involved, and they could have been aware of the illegality of their conduct given the well-established case law. The Authority imposed a fine on the infringing undertakings for a total of HUF 363.5 million (cca. EUR 914,000).

Territorial and customer restrictions: continued enforcement at EU and national level

The Commission is pursuing its action regarding territorial restrictions. Following its Mondelez decision in May 2024, it again sanctioned practices involving territorial restrictions in its Pierre Cardin decision.

In this decision of 28 November 2024 (published on 17 May 2025), it imposed a total fine of €5.7 million on Pierre Cardin and its licensee Ahlers for restricting passive cross-border sales between licensees and sales to certain customers.

These practices, implemented between 2008 and 2021, were designed to protect the territories granted to Ahlers. The Commission describes them as restrictions by object, incompatible with the internal market and very difficult to justify under Article 101(3) TFEU, confirming its long-standing hostility to any form of territorial protection that artificially partitions the Single Market. 

The Hungarian competition authority also sanctioned territorial restrictions in the form of territorial division (Manok decision) and restriction of cross-border sales (Paradox Security decision).

Another example of successful enforcement of the prohibition of territorial restraints at national level is the fine of approximately EUR 1 million imposed on Scott Sportech Poland by the Polish Competition Authority in its decision of 14 July 2025. 

In this decision, the exclusive distributor of the Scott, Bergamont, and Bold bicycle brands in Poland prevented dealers from selling bicycles online, including on popular Polish marketplaces such as Allegro and OLX. In practice, dealers were allowed to present bicycles online, but actual online sales and delivery of bikes to the customer’s specified address were prohibited. This meant that dealers did not have to compete with other dealers nationwide. As a result, their activities were limited to customers from their local areas, as it made little sense for them to travel, for instance, a few hundred kilometers just to collect their orders.

It seems that the enforcement landscape for vertical agreements has never been more active or more sophisticated. 

Companies that take a proactive approach to compliance will better navigate this challenging environment whilst implementing effective commercial distribution strategies. 
The lesson is clear: distribution contracts need to be reviewed for compliance with competition law, sales teams need to be trained, and internal commercial practices need to be monitored on an ongoing basis to avoid any risk of fine or litigation.

Learn more: Explore our competition compliance eLearning courses designed for sales and commercial teams and available in several European languages.

For more information, please contact Elsa Mandel Benichou and Thomas Oster.

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