European Court quashes Bayer's €3m PI fine
The European Commission has lost its appeal against the quashing of its decision to fine Bayer €3m for restricting supplies of Adalat in Spain to try to prevent parallel importing to the UK. The European Court dismissed the appeal in a case that has been running since 1996 (PJ,
27 January 1996, p121).
Bayer began restricting supplies of Adalat (nifedipine) to Spain in 1989,
prompting Spanish wholesalers to complain to the European Commission.
The commission decided, incorrectly, that there was collusion between
the wholesalers and Bayer in breach of European competition law and imposed
a e3m fine. The fine was quashed
by the court (PJ, 11 November 2000,
p706) because there had been no anti-competitive agreement between Bayer
and the wholesalers. The court rejected the commission’s argument
that the ongoing relationship between the wholesalers and Bayer indicated
that the wholesalers agreed with Bayer’s supply restrictions.
Last year, the court’s advocate general recommended that the commission’s
appeal should be quashed (PJ, 31 May 2003, p739).
The European Association of Euro-Pharmaceutical Companies, which champions
the cause of pharmaceutical parallel trade in Europe, believes that there
are more than 40 outstanding complaints from European wholesalers about
supply restrictions awaiting examination by the European Commission.
The association says that officials in Brussels must speed up their analyses
and consider all options open to them to free up trade. The EAEPC wants
officials to concentrate on competition rules such as those designed
to prevent abuse of dominant market positions. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal