Conseil de la concurrence accepts commitments in the French newspapers distribution sector
On 25 February, the French Conseil de la Concurrence accepted commitments from Nouvelles Messageries de Presse Parisienne (NMMP), the incumbent newspaper distributor in France, relating to its 'Presse 2000' computer system. NMMP created and set up the Presse 2000 system at wholesale press agents in order to handle information relating to their activity for all newspapers irrespective of the distributor. NMPP refused to grant direct automated access to the Presse 2000 system to its competitor Messageries Lyonnaise de Presse (MLP), forcing wholesale press agents to manually recapture the information given by MLP's own computer system. Newspapers which chose MLP as distributors seemed to be penalized by a system of lesser quality compared with the one of NMPP.
After a long procedure, NMPP proposed commitments consisting of setting up direct automated access to Presse 2000. The commitments accepted by the Conseil differ substantially from NMPP's initial proposal, especially on the access price side.
Laurent Flochel, from CRA International's French office assisted MLP in this proceeding, advising on the financial conditions of the access.
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