The European Commission said yesterday it had raided the Dutch and Italian offices of major brewers including Heineken, Carlsberg and Interbrew as part of an ongoing investigation into price fixing across Europe.
"The suspicions which triggered these inspections relate to possible agreements on prices, market sharing and exchange of commercial information," the Commission said.
Under EU anti-cartel rules, the companies could be fined up to 10 per cent of revenues if found guilty of anti-competitive practices.
Officials from the EU's antitrust watchdog seized documents from Heineken offices in both the Netherlands and Italy, and from Interbrew, Grolsch and Bavaria offices in the Netherlands. It also swooped on Peroni and Carlsberg premises in Italy, plus the brewers associations in both countries.
No Irish operations had been raided, a Commission spokeswoman in Brussels said. Heineken owns Murphy's Brewery Ireland, which brews the Heineken, Coors, Amstel and Murphy's brands. Carlsberg is brewed under licence by Guinness Ireland. "The investigation is still at an early stage. The documents seized in this week's inspections will now have to be examined," the Commission added.
