【中国国际啤酒网】2019年4月3日，因诉讼时效已过，德国杜塞尔多夫地区高等法院判决撤销了针对嘉士伯啤酒（Carlsberg）的6200万欧元反垄断罚单。2014年，德国联邦卡特尔局以固定生啤和瓶装啤酒价格有损害消费者利益为由，对11家啤酒公司、一个行业联合会及相关高管们作出了总计高达3.38亿欧元的反垄断罚单，这之中的大部分（2.22亿欧元）由瑞德伯格（Radeberger ）和嘉士伯啤酒“贡献”。值得注意的是，此前瑞德伯格也曾就该罚单提起行政诉讼，但基于诉讼相关的财务风险考虑，后者于诉讼开始前撤回了其上诉。
Carlsberg has been playing poker hard - and winning: The company has been threatened by a quadrupling of a million-fines because of antitrust proceedings for unauthorized price-fixing. Now the brewer does not have to pay a cent.
The proceedings against the Carlsberg Brewery and its former head of Germany have been discontinued due to prescription. That was the verdict of the Düsseldorf Higher Regional Court. The imposed million fines of around 62million euros would therefore not have to be paid, said a court spokesman.
In 2014, the Federal Cartel Office had served 11 companies, a federation and managers from the beer industry, fines for a total of 338 million. The allegation: Unauthorized price fixing to the detriment of consumers in draftand bottled beer.
The majority of the fines - € 222 million - were attributable to Dr. Ing.Oetker belonging Radeberger Group and Carlsberg Germany. Carlsberg had lodgedan appeal before the Higher Regional Court against the decision of thecompetition guard.
Radeberger withdrew anappeal
The court spokesman now said that based on the outcome of the trial, the Senate had come to the conclusion that those concerned could only be accused of attempting price-fixing in March 2007. According to this, no antitrust voting is demonstrable. For this reason, the absolute statute of limitations already occurred in 2017 and the procedure had to be discontinued.
Radeberger had originally appealed the decision of the Cartel Office, butwithdrew it shortly before the start of the proceedings because of the financial risks associated with the proceedings.
In fact, the process could have been very expensive for Carlsberg in adefeat. The public prosecutor's office had last demanded for the brewery aquadrupling of the fine to 250 million euros.
