Coca Cola Israe will pay a fine of NIS 36.4 million after abusing its monopolistic position

The Central Beverage Company (Coca Cola Israel) will pay an administrative fine of NIS 36.4 million after abusing its monopolistic position in the beverage market. This is according to the final calculation of the fine approved by the head of the competition court, Judge Tamar Bezek-Rappaport. The original fine imposed in 2019 was NIS 39 million. The ruling indicates that the Competition Tribunal accepted the commissioner's position regarding six law-breaking practices, which constitute an abuse of monopolistic power, which the company has taken over the years.
The first practice is a clause included in the company's agreements with customers, which allows it to completely cancel the agreement, if the customer reduces his purchases from it significantly compared to previous years.
The second practice is an invalid restriction on placing competitors' products in the company's refrigerators and removing competitors' refrigerators from the company's points. The court partially accepted Coca-Cola's appeal, stating that a general policy was not proven, but individual cases.
The third practice is individual agreements with clients for exclusivity. Agreements of this type were forbidden to Coca-Cola within the framework of individual instructions given to it as a monopoly. The fourth practice is the discount standard policy that the company followed, in violation of the conditions under which the company was approved at the time for a merger with the "Naviot" company.
The fifth practice is a move taken by the "Nasty" detergent company from customers. The sixth practice is a policy adopted by the company against parallel imports. The amount of the fine in this section was reduced, since in retrospect it became clear that on the relevant dates there was no legal parallel import of Coca-Cola products into Israel.
The Central Company for the Production of Soft Drinks stated after the verdict: "The Competition Tribunal accepted some of the claims of the Central Company in the appeal it filed against the Competition Authority's decision to impose administrative sanctions on the company. The appeal verdict reduces the amount of sanctions imposed on the company by the Authority in 2017. It should be noted that this This is the third time that the amount of the sanction imposed on the central company has been reduced, following hearings and following the current appeal. The company is considering the continuation of its steps regarding the rest of its rejected claims."