We missed this one earlier in the year, but it was recently brought to our attention; Miele has been pulled up and was fined for anti-competitive practices in Bulgaria for fixing appliance pricing; we have to wonder when that will spread to other areas, and Miele’s anti-competition policies are brought to heel.
We reported on this a while ago when Miele decided that only they or their chosen service partners could buy spare parts, and we’ve always been on about the complete lack of any access to servicing and technical information outside of Miele’s closed system. In our view, this is a practice that no maker should be allowed to persist with as it goes against the principals of Right To Repair and, it’s not good for consumers in many ways.
You can find that news article here
But back in July, Bulgaria’s competition authority said it fined Miele Bulgaria 1.61 million levs ($897,056/823,179 euro) for anti-competitive behaviour in the market for appliances in breach of both national and EU regulations. That last part is very interesting as, if Miele is doing this in other EU states, it’s all too likely that more cases may be brought.
The enquiry was opened after a complaint from Bulgarian company Miele Center Max Group, who is an appliance supplier and retailer, were found to have coordinated resale prices, which limited competition in the appliance retail market in the country, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) said in a press release.
According to the reports, Miele Bulgaria sent mandatory price lists and instructions for promotional activities.
The purpose of the coordinated agreement was to eliminate price competition between retailers and to limit their freedom to independently determine the prices at which they offer goods as a result of competition on the market. Competition is preserved only if companies have autonomy in making decisions about the prices at which to sell, the antitrust regulator added.
“In the presence of such an agreement, traders are deprived of the opportunity to reduce prices in response to competitive price pressure, which in turn deprives end users of the opportunity to receive a more favourable price,” the CPC said.
This is a big no-no in most markets, and it’s price fixing, a practice that has long been frowned upon in most markets around the world. How Miele thought they’d fly under the radar and get away with practices like this escapes us, but it seems they thought they’d get away with it.
Now, if we could do something about the Europe-wide problem with spare parts, service information and so on, and allow Miele owners some choice in the service marketplace, that’d be great.
