PARIS (Reuters) – The Paris Commerce Court has fined French retailer Carrefour 1.75 million euros ($2.1 million) for unfairly squeezing its suppliers on price during annual contract negotiations, the finance ministry said on Friday.
The ruling follows a probe by anti-trust authorities into Carrefour’s practices during its 2016 negotiations with suppliers, the statement said.
The investigation found that Carrefour had forced suppliers to give discounts as a pre-condition to entering annual price negotiations.
The court ordered Carrefour to stop what it called “practices that restrict competition” and requested the provisional execution of the fine.
This means that Carrefour must pay the fine even if it decides to appeal the ruling.
Carrefour had no immediate comment.
($1 = 0.8394 euros)
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Editing by Alex Richardson and Jan Harvey)
