Does the French Lego Case Threaten the Building Blocks of Your Pricing Policy for Online Sellers? | K&L Gates LLP jdsupra.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from jdsupra.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Monday, February 22, 2021
Autorité de la concurrence or ADC) adopted a decision
1 accepting commitments from the building block producer Lego France (Lego) to amend its discount policy. The ADC concluded that Lego’s policy created a price differentiation that “was likely to handicap” pure online players, since they were de facto unable to access certain of Lego’s discounts linked to functions carried out only by physical stores (such as the shelf space reserved for Lego products). As a result, Lego has agreed to redefine its rebate award criteria by making them more accessible and transparent to all resellers.
This alert considers if brands should be concerned by the ADC’s conservative and surprising approach to dual pricing, which in our view is inconsistent with the European Commission’s (Commission) direction of travel at European Union (EU) level and fails to recognise the inherent differences in the costs of online versus offline selling.