Egg buying cartel
In February 2024, it was announced that the ACM had already imposed fines on three egg product manufacturers in December 2022, because these parties had agreed on the purchasing prices of caged and free-range eggs. More specifically, the manufacturers talked via Whatsapp, email and phone about simultaneously lowering those prices and also which farmers they would buy their eggs from. In those contacts (which took place between 2014 and 2019), it was explicitly mentioned that the parties wanted to "cooperate rather than compete" and "keep the peace in the market". The decision on objection of that case was published only after the interim relief judge of the Rotterdam District Court ruled on the request of the companies involved to suspend publication. The interim relief judge ruled that publication did not need to be suspended, but that the ACM had to keep certain sensitive business information confidential.
Fine for bid-rigging in school grounds tender
On 7 March 2024, the ACM imposed a fine of €59,000 on Bloem Infra for participating in cartel agreements with Den Ouden during a tender for the outdoor grounds of a school in Roermond. Both companies secretly exchanged their bids, which resulted in Scholengemeenschap Yuverta receiving less competitive bids. This led to Yuverta having to re-tender the contract, which caused delays in implementation.
Den Ouden was the first to confess to the prohibited agreements and enabled the ACM to launch an investigation, which meant the company did not have to pay a fine. Bloem Infra cooperated with the investigation and acknowledged the violation, resulting in a reduced fine because of the cooperation.
No exclusion of independent clinics in Groningen healthcare collaboration
On 4 April 2024, the ACM concluded that the cooperation between three hospitals in the Groningen region and three health insurers (Menzis, Zilveren Kruis, VGZ) could continue, provided independent treatment centres (ZBCs) are not excluded from the regional healthcare market. This conclusion followed a complaint by Zelfstandige Klinieken Nederland (ZKN) about possible exclusion of ZBCs by this cooperation. That complaint was prompted by media reports suggesting that independent treatment centres might be barred from the Groningen region. After discussions with the ACM, the six parties publicly distanced themselves from these reports and stressed that ZBCs can contribute to regional healthcare solutions, as far as their healthcare offer allows. The parties involved work together in areas such as exercise care, cardiology care, rectal surgery and plastic surgery to ensure sustainable accessibility despite rising healthcare demand and staff shortages. After its investigation and discussions with the parties, the ACM found no evidence of agreements to bar ZBCs and therefore decided not to investigate the cooperation further.
Commitment decision Ticketmaster
Following draft commitments proposed by Ticketmaster in June 2024, the ACM finally accepted more extensive commitments from Ticketmaster on 20 December 2024 to enable competition in the resale of mobile tickets. The ACM had launched an abuse of dominance investigation earlier in the year as it had indications that Ticketmaster was preventing or reserving the resale of mobile tickets to its own company. That prompted Ticketmaster to offer the commitments in June, which ACM then made available for consultation by market participants. Following reactions from those market players and further discussions with ACM, Ticketmaster made additional commitments.
The commitments included a requirement for Ticketmaster to make it clear to other resale platforms whether and when they can resell mobile tickets. This is not always possible because some artists do not allow this, which also applies to Ticketmaster's own platform. Furthermore, the ACM will monitor whether undue discrimination is made between its own platform and third-party resale platforms to ensure fair competition is maintained. The additional commitments were aimed at remedying problems with resales on other platforms by Ticketmaster communicating more clearly to ticket buyers about how to transfer tickets.
Provox and Atos
On 17 September 2024, the ACM announced it had closed its preliminary investigation into the availability of the Provox line by Atos: a product line of medical devices used for patients whose larynx is removed. The ACM received reports about possible concerns that Atos would discontinue the 22-mm Provox line in favour of a new line, Provox Life, with a 23-mm diameter. This could lead to fewer opportunities for patients to combine devices from different brands, which could have adverse effects on competition and quality.
Atos made clear to the ACM that it did not have plans to phase out the Provox line and that both lines would remain available as long as there was demand for them. With these informal commitments, the ACM was sufficiently reassured that availability and choice for patients would continue to be guaranteed, and the ACM decided to close its preliminary investigation.
ACM upholds fine for LG
Earlier, we reported in more detail on the fine on LG that the ACM upheld in its decision on objection. Like Samsung, LG challenged the fine imposed by ACM for alleged vertical price fixing, originally imposed by the ACM on 11 July 2023. LG allegedly agreed with seven retailers on online prices when selling LG televisions over the period from January 2015 to December 2018.
Sustainability
The ACM approved several sustainability initiatives in 2024 and still seems to want to give more space to such initiatives than the Commission. Among other things, the ACM assessed the sustainability fee that Stichting Milieukeur wants to introduce for farmers as a requirement for using the On the Way to Planet Proof label (“OPP Hallmark”). Supermarkets participating in the hallmark will pay producers of agricultural and ornamental products for the costs they have to incur to comply with the OPP Hallmark. Stichting Milieukeur wanted to verify with the ACM whether this was permissible under competition rules and received an informal agreement from the ACM.
In July 2024, the ACM conducted an informal assessment of a coffee capsule recycling initiative. Several coffee producers wanted to cooperate through the initiative Vereniging Koffiecapsules Recycling Nederland to invest to improve coffee capsule recycling, including investments in innovations such as sorting machines used by waste processors. The ACM did not consider a restriction of competition plausible and approved the cooperation.
Finally, the ACM assessed cooperation within the Dutch Banking Association on sustainability reporting. In a data project, banks discussed the sustainability requirements they are required to report on and wanted to identify how statutory ESG requirements can be explained, which calculation methods and data points can be used, and which data sources are suitable for those methods. As the cooperation is voluntary, the explanation of sustainability requirements is based on objective sources and each bank remains responsible for its own reporting, the ACM does not find any adverse effects on competition.
