european-union competition antitrust-law tfeu
Why would this law apply?
<p>An Extract from Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) prohibits:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>(a) directly or indirectly imposing unfair purchase or selling prices or other unfair trading conditions;</p>
</blockquote>
<p>From my research it has been implemented mainly in pharmaceutical(Pfizer/Flynn) and food industry(United brands).
But it has also been implemented in the non-essential industries - technology(Rambus &amp; IMAX).</p>
<p>Doesn't this goes against the core of the free market and why does the CJEU believe it is fair to limit how much can be made for <strong>non-essential</strong> goods or services, especially when the customer has a choice <em>not</em> to buy those goods?</p>
<p>Furthermore, wouldn't this automatically bring luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton under fire because they naturally have very large markups, which are not at all relative to the risk?</p>

<h2>Unfair trading usually means selling below cost or engaging in cartel behaviour</h2>
<p>LV is not captured because they sell well above the cost of production, distribution, and retail.</p>
<p>The type of behaviour that is captured is known as predatory pricing where a large competitor sells below cost in a market to drive smaller competitors out of business either by cross-subsidies from other markets or by simply absorbing the losses from greater capital reserves. A large North American coffee company has been accused of doing this when expanding into new markets.</p>
<p>Another type of unfair practice is actively conspiring with your competitors to agree a market price, or to not compete in other dimensions - perhaps by agreeing not to advertise in certain markets. This deprives consumers of choice because there is no price differentiation or there is no opportunity to learn about competition.</p>
<p>Other types of (arguable) unfair practices is buying up your competitors or refusing to supply certain markets (i.e. tacit or explicit agreements not to compete).</p>
