On the same day that Mondelez was fined over €330 million for restricting parallel trade, the Ministry of Economic Affairs came up with the proposal to curb territorial supply restrictions. The proposal includes plans to ban discrimination between B2B buyers based on country of residence. Tackling territorial supply restrictions has long been high on the priority list in the Netherlands and this proposal is an outgrowth of that. GCR asked Cyriel about the proposal and the intended shift in the burden of proof:
‘Drafting new legislation to ban territorial supply constraints will not be straightforward, said Maverick Advocaten partner Cyriel Ruers in Amsterdam. Shifting the burden of proof from retailers to suppliers is ‘quite a drastic measure’ that could conflict with the presumption of innocence, he added. ‘The proposal to ban such constraints should be underpinned by a “more fundamental debate” about the potential pro-competitive effects of price discrimination reflected in economic literature, he said.’
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