Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC)<\/a> investigation relates to a so-called \u201cresale price maintenance arrangement\u201d between a manufacturer, a distributor and multiple retailers operating in Ireland. <\/p>\nResale price maintenance occurs when a supplier seeks to control the price at which a product is resold, potentially restricting competition and harming consumers. The agreement may specify a fixed or minimum resale price or a specified minimum margin, decided by the supplier. <\/p>\n
If resellers are not able to sell at a lower price, should they wish to, it restricts businesses from competing properly.<\/p>\n
As part of its investigation, the CCPC conducted an unannounced inspection at a premises of an Irish-based distributor in June last year. <\/p>\n
In collaboration with the German Competition Authority (Bundeskartellamt), an unannounced inspection was also carried out at the premises of a manufacturer located in Germany in November 2025. CCPC authorised officers supported their German counterparts during this operation. <\/p>\n
EU and Irish law allow a competition authority of one member state request the competition authority of another member state to carry out an inspection or other fact-finding measure on its territory on its behalf. <\/p>\n
The CCPC has also made formal requests for information to several retailers active in Ireland. <\/p>\n
The investigation is being carried out under the CCPC\u2019s enhanced competition law enforcement powers, which came into effect in September 2023. <\/p>\n
Under the 2023 administrative enforcement regime, independent adjudication officers of the CCPC may impose financial sanctions on a business which has been found to have breached competition law. <\/p>\n
The CCPC has encouraged anyone with relevant information to contact its antitrust division and had highlighted a leniency arrangement that can see reductions in fines for those who reveal their involvement in resale price maintenance and who fully cooperate with a CCPC investigation. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs the investigation is ongoing, no further details are available at this time,\u201d the CCPC said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish consumers may have paid over the odds for electric appliances sold by multiple retailers due to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254728,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,11756,61,60],"class_list":["post-254727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-competition-and-consumer-protection-commission-ccpc","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254727\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}