‘Asus and Philips illegally imposed minimum prices for products on online stores’

Asus, Pioneer and Philips are said to have banned online stores from pricing products themselves. Because many online stores work with software that monitors competitors’ prices, this practice has led to higher prices across the market, the European Commission believes.

The Commission is opening an investigation into the alleged price increase. In addition to the three companies mentioned, audio company Denon & Marantz will also be the subject of research. The European Commission does not say which products manufacturers have kept prices artificially high in this way. This includes audio equipment and laptops.

The manufacturers would have forced online stores not to use their own prices, but to work with the prices specified by the manufacturer. Because online stores that did not have this agreement may have set their own prices with the help of software, this may have had a broader impact on the prices for products than only in the online stores with those agreements, the Commission believes.

The European Commission launched the investigation on its own initiative and thus has not received a complaint about this commercial practice. If, after conducting an investigation, the Commission believes that the conduct violates European competition rules, the companies can be fined.