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Guess fined 45 million dollars for blocking cross-border sales

By Kristopher Fraser

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Business

Reuters has reported that European Union anti-trust regulators have fined Guess 45.3 million dollars for illegally blocking cross-border sales in Europe as part of a crackdown of illegal practices blocking e-commerce in the EU.

Guess came under investigation in June 2017 after a year-long inquiry of cross-border online practices of 1900 companies. The European Commission said Guess' distribution deals with retailers restricted them from using Guess brand names and trademarks for online search and advertising, and prevented them from setting the retail price independently.

Retailers also had to get authorization from Guess before they could sell online, and the criteria for such approval wasn't based on any quality criteria. Sellers also couldn't sell to consumers outside of their authorized areas.

This allowed Guess to partition off certain European markets and charger higher prices in central and eastern Europe compared to eastern Europe. These practices went on until October 31 of last year.

Guess actually received a 50 percent cut in the fine, and in a regulatory filing last month they had estimated the fine to be between 37 to 40.6 million euros and also said they had made adjustments to their business practices in response to the fine.

photo: via Businesswire.com
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