Notice pursuant to Article 19(3) of Council Regulation No 17 concerning an application for negative clearance or exemption under Article 81(3) of the EC Treaty (Cases COMP/34.657 - Sammelrevers and COMP/35.245 to 35.251 - Einzelreverse) (Text with EEA relevance)
Date: 2000-06-10
Institutions: European Commission
Subjects: Austria, Germany, book trade, fixing of prices, restriction on competition, selling price

10.6.2000

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 162/25

Notice pursuant to Article 19(3) of Council Regulation No 17 (1) concerning an application for
negative clearance or exemption under Article 81(3) of the EC Treaty

(Cases COMP/34.657 (cid:151) Sammelrevers and COMP/35.245 to 35.251 (cid:151) Einzelreverse)

(2000/C 162/08)

(Text with EEA relevance)

I. THE NOTIFICATION

their

1. On 18 March 1993, German and Austrian publishers
applied to the Commission, pursuant to Article 4 of Regu-
lation No 17, for negative clearance or, alternatively, for
exemption under Article 81(3) of the EC Treaty in respect
of
retail price maintenance agreements covering
books and other printed products in Germany, Austria
and Switzerland (Sammelrevers system). Publishers from
the German-speaking area and a number of publishers
from other countries as well took part in this price main-
tenance system.

2. By letters dated 31 March and 10 May 2000, the notifying
parties sent the Commission an amended version of the
Sammelrevers system. The effect of the changes is that, as
from 30 June 2000, the price maintenance agreements
between German booksellers on the one hand and
Austrian publishers and publishers from Member States
other than Germany on the other will be annulled.
In
addition, as from the same date, the price maintenance
agreements between German publishers and publishers
from Member States other than Austria on the one hand
and Austrian booksellers on the other will be revoked.
Publishers from Switzerland, China, the Czech Republic
and the United States of America will continue to
participate in the new Sammelrevers system.

II. THE NOTIFIED AGREEMENTS AS AMENDED

3. The Sammelrevers

system originally notified essentially
comprised agreements between German publishers and
Austrian booksellers, between Austrian publishers and
German booksellers, between German publishers and
German booksellers and between Austrian publishers and
Austrian booksellers. A number of publishers
from
Member States other
than Germany and Austria also
participated. The newly notified Sammelrevers system is
now restricted within the EU to agreements between
German publishers and German booksellers.

4. The conclusion and supervision of the application of these
retail price maintenance agreements are managed centrally
by price maintenance trustees
(Preisbindungstreuh(cid:228)nder),
who are authorised by the publishers to send commitment
forms (Verpflichtungserkl(cid:228)rungen) on their behalf to all book-
sellers. In signing this form, the bookseller undertakes to
abide by the publisher’s list prices in selling books in

(1) OJ 13, 21.2.1962, p. 204/62.

Germany and Switzerland. Retail price maintenance
agreements thus come into being between each partici-
pating publisher
bookseller
through the offices of the trustee.

each participating

and

5. The same procedure was used as from 1994 by the seven
largest publishing houses, which left
the Sammelrevers
system and operated a retail price maintenance system
organised by another trustee (these individual agreements
are known as Einzelreverse). The individual agreements of
these seven publishers incorporated the terms of
the
Sammelrevers price maintenance system. By letter dated
informed the
31 March 2000,
Commission that the individual agreements concluded by
the seven largest German publishers were being abolished
and that
those publishers would be joining the new
German national Sammelrevers system.

the notifying parties

6. Under the Sammelrevers system, booksellers must pay a
stipulated fine each time they deliberately or negligently
offer or grant an unauthorised discount. The amount of
the fine corresponds to the value of the transaction in
question, but may not be less than DEM 3 000 for a
first offence, DEM 5 000 for each subsequent offence
and DEM 10 000 for offering unauthorised discounts to
several customers. Publishers are also entitled to stop
supplying a bookseller who has breached the retail price
maintenance agreement.

7. The obligations on booksellers also apply in cases where
books subject to price maintenance are not bought direct
from the publisher, but from the wholesale book trade.
Wholesalers are also obliged to examine whether a book-
seller is already a party to the Sammelrevers system before
making a sale. If a bookseller is not a party, the wholesaler
must ensure that the bookseller becomes a party to the
agreement. In addition, if the wholesaler supplies retailers
outside Germany, he must ensure that
such retailers
undertake to abide by the price maintenance arrangements
in the event that they reimport the books into Germany.

8. German books and printing products reimported into
Germany from another Member State are in principle
not subject to retail price maintenance. The Sammelrevers
system applies to them only if it is clear that the books
and similar products were exported solely for the purpose
of being reimported in order to avoid the Sammelrevers
retail price maintenance arrangements.

C 162/26

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

10.6.2000

9. Besides books, the Sammelrevers system also covers other
printed products such as magazines, smaller items (e.g.
postcards, greetings cards,
illustrated cards and church
pamphlets), calendars, art cards and CD-ROMs. About
90 % of books in Germany are subject to the Sammelrevers
system and the Einzelreverse.

10. Cross-border sales of books to final consumers in Member
States other than the Member State in which the seller is
to the price maintenance
established are not
arrangements. This also applies therefore to direct cross-
border sales to final consumers via the Internet and direct
cross-border sales to final consumers in Germany.

subject

III. ANTI-COMPETITIVE NATURE OF THE AGREEMENTS

11. The retail price maintenance agreements embodied in the
Sammelrevers system and concluded through the offices of
the price maintenance trustees, and the Einzelreverse price
maintenance
agreements within the
are
meaning of Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty.

agreements

12. The Sammelrevers system consists of a number of individual
retail price maintenance agreements between a number of
publishers and a number of booksellers under which the
booksellers are required to comply with the retail or shop
price set by the publisher for any given title. The ruling
the
out of price competition between booksellers for
relevant titles means that booksellers are prevented from
improving their market position through their own
competitive efforts by offering books at prices below the
shop prices set by the publishers and thus, for example,
passing on to consumers benefits achieved through
rationalisation measures. Booksellers are also prevented
sale of books by means of
from promoting the

temporary or permanent price reductions. The agreements
therefore restrict competition.

IV. EFFECTS ON TRADE BETWEEN MEMBER STATES

13. Since what

is

such books,

involved is price maintenance which
regulates only the sale of books of German publishers by
German booksellers to final consumers in Germany and
since German books reimported into Germany may in
principle be sold at freely determined prices and since,
for
to be
complied with only where the exportation and reimpor-
tation of the books were designed solely to evade the price
it may be assumed that the
maintenance arrangements,
retail price maintenance will not have any appreciable
effect on trade between Member States and, consequently,
is not caught by Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty.

stipulated prices have

the

V. COMMISSION’S INTENTION

14. On the basis of the above, the Commission intends to take
the view that the notified agreements are not caught by
Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty. Before doing so, however, it
invites all interested third parties to send any observations
they might have within three weeks of the publication of
this notice,
(cid:145)COMP/34.657 (cid:151)
Sammelrevers(cid:146) and (cid:145)COMP/35.245 to 35.251 (cid:151) Einzelreverse(cid:146),
to the following address:

reference

citing

the

European Commission
Directorate-General for Competition
Directorate C
Rue de la Loi/Wetstraat 200
B-1049 Brussels
Fax (32-2) 296 98 04