Association of Peugeot Dealers ordered to cease unlawful boycott

Decision by the Danish Competition Council 23 February 2022 − Collective boycott of Bilbasen by the Danish Association of Peugeot Dealers

Background

Bilbasen.dk and Biltorvet.dk are digital car portals primarily advertising used cars. The Danish Association of Peugeot Dealers (Peugeot Forhandler Foreningen) is an association of independent car dealers in Denmark who sell and service cars of the Peugeot brand.

From late 2012 until at least August 2014, emails were exchanged between a number of independent Peugeot dealers and one or more members of the board of the Association of Peugeot Dealers, as well as between members of the board internally, stating that Peugeot dealers were to cease advertising on Bilbasen.dk, to help promote Biltorvet.dk instead.

The Danish Competition Council's decision

The Danish Competition Council (DCC) has found that the exchange of emails between the Association of Peugeot Dealers and its members about advertising on Bilbasen.dk amounted to an agreement or a concerted practice, and that it violated the Danish Competition Act’s ban on anti-competitive agreements, taking the form of a collective boycott of Bilbasen.dk. According to the decision, the boycott had sought to restrict competition on the Danish market for advertising on car portals and thereby also competition on the Danish market for the sale of used (Peugeot) cars in Denmark. The Association of Peugeot Dealers, conversely, argued that its conduct served to promote competition and was lawful. 

The DCC has now issued an order to the Association of Peugeot Dealers. The Association is ordered to immediately cease the infringement, if it has not ceased already, and to desist from all such conduct in future. Moreover, the Association is ordered to inform its members of the DCC’s decision and to provide documentation that it has done so not later than 14 business days from the date of the decision.

Our comments

There are few examples in recent case law where the Danish Competition Act has been infringed by an agreement between competitors for a boycott.

Previous examples include a case in which real estate agents agreed to boycott boliga.dk and one in which the Central Association of Auto Repairers in Denmark (Centralforeningen af Autoreparatører i Danmark) had urged its members to boycott Autobutler.dk.

For trade organisations especially, it is important to be mindful of the limitations imposed by competition law on this type of behaviour which may be found to set a particular norm and/or to amount to coordination internally among their members.