The Portuguese Competition Authority (AdC) issued a Statement of Objections to three large food retail groups and a supplier for price fixing.

The investigation conducted by the AdC revealed that three large food retail groups used the commercial relationship with a supplier to line up, between 2004 and 2007, the retail prices they practiced for those products, to the detriment of consumers.

If confirmed, this practice is equivalent to a cartel, in which the distributors do not communicate directly with each other, as usually the case in a cartel, but they use bilateral contacts with the supplier to promote or guarantee through the latter that they all practice the same retail price in the market retailer.

This practice is called a hub-and-spoke, in competition terminology.

This proceeding is part of a second set of hub-and-spoke cases investigated in Portugal, involving large retailers and suppliers, and the AdC is currently pursuing more than ten investigations in the large food retail sector.