I see a captain on a
distant shore
He's got a dream, he
wants to make it law
He's got my number,
he's got a plan
He try to get you any
way he can
Wants to own
everything he sees
And now for something completely different!
Philips, the Dutch electronics company, specialized in
healthcare, lifestyle and lighting, is a company that is seemingly sliding
close to the edges, when it comes to doing business
in a fair manner:
- About two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote about the adventures of the healthcare division of Philips in Poland;
- On 25 February 2013, I reported upon a mega penalty that Philips received for making illegal price agreements on television spare parts;
- Less than one week later, Philips hit the jackpot again; this time for making illegal price arrangements in Austria;
And today, the news was published by Bloomberg that a few
companies had been raided by antitrust officials from the European Union: two
electronics companies and two retailers (of the same family tree).
These companies are currently under suspicion of making
illegal arrangements, that were meant to hamper the sales and distribution of
household electronics through online shops. And guess which was one of these
electronics companies?! You guessed right: Philips.
Here are the pertinent snips of this emerging story by
Bloomberg:
Samsung Electronics
Co. Royal Philips NV and Metro AG’s Media-Saturn were among companies raided by
European Union antitrust officials as part of a probe into suspected
online-sales restrictions.
Regulators said
companies may have “put in place restrictions on online sales of
consumer-electronic products and small domestic appliances,” according to an
e-mailed statement yesterday.
Such clauses may
increase consumer prices or prevent some products being sold online, it said,
without citing companies involved in the probe.
The EU is “very well
aware” of similar U.K. and German probes but has rarely examined so-called
vertical restraints where manufacturers restrict prices or supplies, he said.
He didn’t give details on the EU raids.
EU antitrust officials
visited a number of companies in several European countries on Dec. 3, Antoine
Colombani, a spokesman for the Brussels-based regulator, said yesterday. Philips
was visited by EU officials this week, said Joost Akkermans, a spokesman for
the Amsterdam-based company.
“We are fully
cooperating with the European Commission but as this is an ongoing case, we
cannot comment any further,” Akkermans said in an e-mail.
Media-Saturn, part of
Germany’s biggest retailer, said the EU visited it on Dec. 3 and the group “is
cooperating fully.”
Samsung, Asia’s
largest technology company and the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, is
“cooperating fully with the European Commission,” spokeswoman Rhee So-eui said
in an e-mailed statement. “We cannot comment on details at this time.”
Of course, I must emphasize that this particular case is far
from being settled yet. Naturally, Philips is innocent until proven guilty (or ‘until
being penalized’, as it almost never comes to a formal conviction in such a
situation), just like the other companies involved.
Nevertheless, you could easily state that appearances are
against Philips, Samsung
and Saturn/Media Markt (see for this company the link to the aforementioned,
February 25th article) in this particular case. With these three companies, a pattern
of being ‘serial offenders’ emerges: companies that seemingly don’t learn from their
mistakes, but just try it another time… and another.
Philips has traditionally been a company that made The
Netherlands a ‘proud’ country: with their fundamental and applied research in
the world-famous NatLab (i.e. “physics laboratory”), world-conquering
inventions and innovative production methods, the company made products that have
been in world-wide use for ages, until this very day. By doing so, the company
brought employment and prosperity to many regions in The Netherlands and (far) abroad.
The same is true for Samsung in South-Korea: a company that
evolved from being a producer of low price/quality household appliances, into world-leader
in smart phones and LED televisions and a.o. producer of innovative washing machines,
that pushed the envelope of laundry.
However, in recent times it seemed that these companies have
been in the news more often for negative than for positive reasons, unfortunately.
Of course, I am aware that life in 2013 can be very hard for electronics companies
and retailers. Margins on the production and sales of electronics and household
appliances are depleting and the competition from especially China and other
retail organizations – especially in the online channel – is very hard.
This doesn’t change the fact, that the electronics production
and retail business is just like the annual ‘Tour de France’ cycling
competition: everybody feels betrayed when the ‘winners’ have been cheating
with the rules of competition.
And in this particular case, the European consumers, who
were already hit hard by the economic crisis, might have been cheated out of a
fair (and lower) price for their household appliances. And that is not how
things are supposed to be.
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