competitionlaw

The Italian Competition Authority or AGCM has condemned 26 pasta makers and two industry associations for having put in place price-fixing practices in the market for durum semolina pasta. The cartel was aimed at coordinating increases in selling in prices of pasta the cartelists applied to supermarket chains over the October 2006-March 2008 period. In this way, the pasta producers tried to protect their margins which were squeezed between the buyer power of supermarket chains and the rising prices of ingredients to make pasta. The most important finding of the AGCM decision was that the supermarket chains had a relevant buyer power that they could exert with regard to any pasta producers, regardless of their size. And, accordingly, the only way for pasta manufacturers to counter the buyer power of supermarket chains was to develop a common pricing policy and jointly implement it. Though, so the AGCM argument run, the more efficient pasta producers could react to increasing production