[European] Coca-Cola premises raided
Source: BBC, 22 Jul 99
Gustave, you have proposed several times there may be rather market-political instead of chemical reasons for the scandal. How does this bit fit in?
Regards MNI.
Coca-Cola premises raided
Coca-Cola premises across Europe have been
raided by European Commission inspectors
investigating the company's trading practices.
The raids are part of an operation to
establish whether the world's top brand name
has abused its market position in Germany,
Austria and Denmark by offering incentives to
retailers to carry its full range of products
and stop selling competing brands.
Coca-Cola's UK headquarters in Hammersmith,
west London, were also visited.
A spokesman for the US company confirmed that
Commission officials had carried out dawn
raids at plants and premises in Germany,
Austria and Denmark over the past two days, in
which records were confiscated.
Commission officials also visited the offices
of four bottling companies in the same
countries. Coca-Cola holds stakes in the
companies but does not own them outright.
"We can confirm that the European Commission
made unannounced visits to several of our
offices and the offices of some of our
bottling partners," the company spokesman
said.
"Their purpose was to review internal files
related to commercial practices with retailers
and other customers. We believe we are within
full compliance of all competition laws and
regulations, and we are co-operating fully
with the authorities."
A spokesman for Coca-Cola UK said he
understood the raids were carried out after
the Commission "received information
suggesting there had been a violation" of
trading practices.
Health scare
The investigation comes a month after
Coca-Cola products were at the centre of a
European health scare. The Belgian government
imposed a nationwide ban on soft drinks
produced by the firm when dozens of youngsters
were hospitalised complaining of stomach pains
and nausea after drinking Coke.
The ban was dropped at the beginning of this
month. But the scare rapidly spread to other
countries, with Luxembourg imposing a similar
ban, France banning Coke in cans, and the
Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Switzerland
recalling Coca-Cola products sourced from
Belgium.
Coca-Cola said it had traced the origin of the
problems in Belgium to a plant in Antwerp and
another in Dunkirk, France. The bans were a
major blow to the US giant, which admitted
European consumer confidence in its
brands had suffered badly. |
