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French antitrust body fines eyewear makers for imposing selling prices – Metro US

French antitrust body fines eyewear makers for imposing selling prices

A LVMH luxury group logo is seen prior to the
A LVMH luxury group logo is seen prior to the announcement of their 2019 results in Paris

PARIS (Reuters) -France’s antitrust body on Thursday fined several eyewear makers for imposing selling prices on opticians and preventing them from selling online.

The Autorite de la Concurrence said it had fined EssilorLuxottica 125.17 million euros ($147.60 million), LVMH 500,000 euros and Chanel 130,000 euros.

“These anti-competitive practices are serious”, the antitrust body said in its ruling.

“In particular, they involved the implementation of surveillance and retaliation mechanisms,” it added.

EssilorLuxottica said it would appeal against the ruling, adding it always conducted its business according to the highest standards of compliance. LVMH had no immediate comment to make on the matter, while Chanel declined to comment.

($1 = 0.8480 euros)

(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Matthieu Protard and Mimosa Spencer; Editing by Jason Neely/Sudip Kar-Gupta)