The Netherlands & Greece: Court finds Heineken joint and severally liable for market abuses of its Greek subsidiary

The Amsterdam District Court has cleared the way for Macedonian Thrace Brewery (MTB) to press home its claim against Heineken N.V. for more than €160 million in damages resulting from the anti-competitive practices of its Greek subsidiary, Athenian Brewery ("AB"), Business Wire reported on October 24.

MTB, whose claim was initially filed in 2017, has now swept aside all procedural attempts by Heineken to dodge liability for the actions of its Greek subsidiary. This latest ruling makes it clear that Heineken is part of the same undertaking as its subsidiary and as such is jointly and severally liable for Athenian Brewery’s market abuses, as confirmed in the Greek authorities’ 2015 ruling.

The Amsterdam District Court found that it could reach "no other conclusion than that Heineken had a decisive influence in AB". The Court also noted that the "managing director appointed by Heineken" to AB at the time, Jac van Herpen, "was criminally convicted of violating competition laws".

The Dutch Court will now decide the total damages that MTB is entitled to receive from Heineken.

This week’s ruling piles further pressure on Heineken’s Board and its CEO Dolf van den Brink, creating a dangerous precedent for Heineken which faces a near identical claim from Carlsberg for more than €300 million. In recent years, Heineken has been fined or investigated by competition authorities in Austria, the US, UK, Hungary, India and elsewhere. In Austria in 2023, the national competition authority found that, just as in Greece, Heineken’s subsidiary Brau Union had committed anti-competitive practices "that restrict the sales opportunities and market entry of competing brewers and oust existing drinks retailers from the market".

The MTB litigation and the Carlsberg claim both follow on from the Greek competition regulator’s 2015 ruling that Heineken’s subsidiary was guilty of longstanding and widespread anticompetitive misconduct. Heineken disclosed in its last Annual Report that it recognises a potential liability of €478 million in response to the damages claims from rivals MTB and Carlsberg following the Dutch brewer’s unlawful conduct in the Greek market.

Demetri Chriss, Director of Business Development at MTB, said:

"We feel totally vindicated by today’s judgment. It is a victory for all European independent brewers that have found themselves on the receiving end of abuses perpetrated by multinational behemoths with opaque corporate structures.

The Amsterdam District Court’s decision has confirmed what we’ve been insisting on all along about the joint and several liability of Heineken and its subsidiary, Athenian Brewery, in Greece. It is a major milestone in the private enforcement of EU competition law.

Heineken’s previous CEO Jean Francois van Boxmeer bid farewell to his colleagues by stating "If you make mistakes, admit, apologize and repair." Sadly, it appears that no one was listening."

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