Rewe paid 70 million euros in an antitrust: ECHR complaint planned

Billa mother Rewe Has the one imposed at the beginning of February from the Supreme Court (OGH) as a antitrust court Record cartel penalty of EUR 70 million already transferred.

“The court had prescribed the payment and we have already paid the fine,” said Rewe International WHAT-Inquiry. The event for the punishment was the non -timing reporting of a business area takeover in Wels at the Federal Competition Authority (BWB).

Rewe is currently preparing one because of the record cartel penalty Individual complaints to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) before because you see yourself injured in several rights. The Standard (Wednesday edition) first reported on the planned complaint. “We will bring this application to the ECHR as part of the 4-month period,” Rewe told the WHAT.

REWE: judgment “massive disproportionate”

After the verdict, the food dealer had criticized the “exorbitant sentence” for “a formal violation” as “massive disproportionate”. “The accused offense – the non -report of the location – did not lead to any economic advantages for REWE International AG,” emphasized the supermarket chain at the time. As a antitrust court, the OGH had massively increased the fine for the Rewe from EUR 1.5 million to EUR 70 million. The German Rewe Group includes ADEG, Billa, Billa Plus, Bipa and Penny in Austria.

The court justifies the record cartel penalty on 21 pages: “Financials pursue preventive and repressive purposes according to the Cartel Act, which requires an appropriate amount, otherwise no deterrent effect is achieved,” said the antitrust court in its decision. As a OGH, it has been “already clarified several times in Austria to effectively combat cartel violations of fines on the order of the size of the order and in numerous Member States in numerous Member States”.

Record cartel penalty also causes a sensation among lawyers

Constitutional lawyer Heinz Mayer sees the Rewe cartel penalty critically. The Supreme Court “had an unconstitutional extensive interpretation,” the lawyer recently wrote in a guest comment in the “Standard”. The OGH resolution thus “on a constitutional decision” and is therefore “as unconstitutional as this”.

For the antitrust law expert Peter Stockenhuber From the University of Vienna, the Cartel Court decision on Rewe is completely understandable. “The OGH only corrects a blatant misjudgment of the antitrust court,” said Stockenhuber in early February WHAT. Not registering with the BWB is “not a cavalier offense.” The antitrust court has long been saying in the direction of the antitrust court “that cartel penalties should be raised to an international level,” said Stockenhuber.

The cartel expert also referred to the SPAR case in 2015, in which the OGH as a antitrust Court had tenfold the penalty of EUR 3 million to EUR 30 million. The professor of antitrust law at the Vienna Economic University Viktoria Robertson described the record penalty for Rewe as a “bang” compared to “Ö1”. From the BWB’s point of view, the OGH has made a “directional decision”.