Commercial negotiations: a fine of more than 33 million euros imposed on the European powerhouse of E.Leclerc

The European central of E.Leclerc, Eurelec, received a fine of more than 33 million euros for not having respected last year the deadline set to complete commercial negotiations with certain French suppliers, the fraud repression indicated on Monday.

“A fine of 33,537,615 euros was imposed” against “the company Eurelec Trading SCRL (LECLERC) for 70 breaches of its obligation to sign agreements concluded with its French suppliers no later than March 1, 2025,” specifies the General Directorate for Competition, Consumption and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) in a press release.

Annie Genevard denounces the “deadly blackmail” of mass distribution

This year, the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard tackled this Sunday in our columns, the “requirements of large-scale distribution, in terms of prices” which “are incompatible with the demands of manufacturers”. “Some brands are threatening to delist certain brands due to lack of agreement. I believe that this is deadly blackmail for the agri-food industry,” she said.

Response this Monday morning on Public Senate from the president of the strategic committee of the E.Leclerc centers Michel-Édouard Leclerc: Annie Genevard speaks on behalf of the “corporation that she defends”. According to him, the minister does not use “the right words” to describe the annual negotiations between supermarkets and suppliers, which began on December 1 and which must end on March 1. The agricultural world “has the impression that, downstream, manufacturers and distributors are preventing pay from being increased,” he added.

Throughout his interview, Michel-Édouard Leclerc placed the responsibility back on the industrialists: “it is the industrial raw material that makes the difference”; “at the end of the month (…) you will see (…) that industrialists will distribute dividends”; “the major criticism that we can make in these negotiations is that there is no real transparency on the part of the large multinationals” in the agro-industry. “And behind it, there are us, distributors, and we have the consumer who says: please, don’t increase too much. So everyone has their role,” he assured.

On the removal of certain references from the shelves to put pressure on manufacturers, Michel-Édouard Leclerc affirms that “in this case at the moment, it is the manufacturers who are not delivering to us”, citing in particular the Swiss chocolate maker Lindt, with whom negotiations are fierce. The manager clarified that he was withdrawn from commercial negotiations and did not intervene “in the supplier-distributor relationship”. He also indicated that he would be interviewed by the Senate commission of inquiry into commercial margins, without knowing on what date.