Coca-Cola Bottler Faces New Fine for Price Fixing Attempts

The Central Bottling Company, the Israeli bottler of Coca-Cola, is facing a new fine of over 1.5 million shekels (approximately $400,000) from the Israel Competition Authority. This comes after the company, already declared a monopoly in 1998, was fined 18 million shekels earlier this year for illegal intervention in consumer prices.

The latest penalty stems from price recommendations the company allegedly provided to food chains regarding its beverage products. Israeli law restricts suppliers from dictating the final sale price to consumers to foster competition and prevent large suppliers from controlling retailers' pricing.

While the conduct leading to this new fine was known during the previous investigation, the Competition Authority initially held back to examine if it constituted a violation of the specific regulations applicable to the company as a declared monopoly. However, this separate investigation did not find evidence of monopoly-specific violations.

Consequently, the authority and the company reached an agreement on the additional fine for violating the food law concerning price recommendations. This case is part of a broader investigation by the Competition Authority into major food and beverage suppliers and their commercial relationships with large supermarket chains, which has already resulted in fines exceeding 150 million shekels.

The authority is now also examining the conduct of the large food chains themselves to ensure their compliance with the food law.