Originals shoe importer to pay NIS 3 million for interfering with personal imports

The owner of the Originals and Factory 54 shoe chains will pay more than NIS 3 million in fines for damaging the personal import of Rockport brand shoes.

The antitrust watch found that Israeli consumers were visiting Rockport’s US website amid price differences between Israel and the US to compare prices and make personal import purchases – placing an order in the US for delivery to Israel.

When representatives of the brand’s official importer raised the issue of price differences with the global brand owner during negotiations to improve its commercial terms, the international company proposed blocking access to Israeli users and automatically redirecting them to the Israeli Originals site.

Although Originals argued that the proposed solution did not address the issues it had raised in the negotiations, the company eventually complied and provided the owner of the global brand with the address of its Israeli website for redirection.

By doing so, according to the Competition Authority, the importer caused direct damage to personal imports and to the ability of Israeli consumers to benefit from competitive prices.

The blocking and automatic redirection were stopped only after the department opened an investigation into this issue, and the companies restored free access to the American Rockport site for Israeli users.