The Belgian Competition Authority (BCA) has closed its investigation against Immoweb (a Belgian real-estate web portal owned by Axel Springer) concerning Most Favoured Nation clauses (MFNs) in contracts with software developers, following a commitment by Immoweb to remove such clauses from its contracts. The BCA investigated whether such clauses prevented software developers from offering lower prices to Immoweb’s competitors, thereby raising rivals’ costs. Following its investigation, the BCA did not take a position on whether Immoweb infringed competition rules as a results of such clauses.
CRA Vice President Raphaël De Coninck and Associate Principal Mikaël Hervé advised Immoweb during the investigation.
More details can be found in on the BCA’s website here.
Assessing umbrella pricing incentives
When collusive agreements involve a subset of firms in an industry, they may create the incentive and ability for firms that are not participants in the cartel...