Groupement Mousquetaires has hit out at allegations the French retailer took half in a cartel for natural merchandise within the nation.
The corporate advised Simply Meals it was amongst a clutch of corporations that acquired a “grievance notification” from France’s Autorité de la Concurrence late final 12 months.
Mousquetaires stated within the discover France’s anti-trust regulator claimed the businesses had been engaged in an “alleged collective technique of synthetic differentiation between distribution channels”.
“We strongly contest this grievance,” the Netto and Intermarché proprietor stated.
Stories from native information retailers together with LSA and Libération, citing Agence France Presse (AFP), counsel Carrefour and Mousquetaires’ Intermarché are among the many retailers underneath scrutiny.
The Autorité declined to touch upon the information when approached by Simply Meals, whereas Carrefour couldn’t be reached for remark on the time of writing.
In line with Libération, in a common registration doc for 2024 seen by AFP, Carrefour stated the group’s subidiaries Sobio, CSF and Greenweez had been accused of “coordinating, beginning in November 2016, to implement a collective technique” to “artificially phase, in line with manufacturers, the distribution of natural merchandise between, on the one hand, the specialised distribution channel [organic stores and online sites], and, alternatively, the standard distribution channel”.
The French retail main advised AFP that it had been “accused of an alleged concerted follow with Synabio,” the French commerce union for natural agri-food companies. It stated the allegations centred round “a segmentation of natural merchandise based mostly on basic and specialist networks throughout conferences inside this commerce union”.
The group stated, nonetheless, “Sobio and CSF have by no means joined the Synabio union and Greenweez has solely participated in a single assembly, and Carrefour has by no means acquiesced to the alleged frequent line adopted inside Synadis Bio.”
It added that it had responded “in February” to the Autorité, “contesting all of the grievances notified”.
