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Polish anti-monopoly watchdog fines Kaufland

Wojciech Pacewicz/PAP

The German-owned supermarket chain Kaufland has been fined almost PLN 140 million (EUR 30.5 million) by Poland’s anti-monopoly office, UOKiK, for exploiting its suppliers and mislabelling vegetables.

An UOKiK investigation found that Kaufland Polska Markety, the company operating the chain in Poland, had “exploited its contractual advantage” by demanding reductions in prices from its suppliers of food and agricultural products.

According to the UOKiK, there were also additional discounts imposed on some supplies that had not been included in their contracts.

“The unfair retroactive discounts were obtained from 176 suppliers for a total of over PLN 30 million (EUR 6.5 million),” the Polish anti-monopoly office calculated. It noted that the suppliers were largely small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, as well as farms and producers’ groups.

The investigation also found that Kaufland had at times exploited gaps between lapsed and new contracts with producers which led to them supplying goods without knowing the final conditions of the new contracts.

As a result, 72 out of 800 suppliers had to pay some “unfavourable compensations” totalling PLN 37 million (EUR 8 million).

For these offences against suppliers, UOKiK imposed a fine of PLN 124 million (EUR 27 million) on the company.

Kaufland Polska Markety has been also fined PLN 13.2 million (EUR 2.9 million) due to “regularly” mislabelling vegetables when it comes the country of origin.

The decisions by UOKiK are not final and the company can appeal against them in court.

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