The Central Agriculture Office (MgSzH) has fined five commercial chain stores a total of 345 million forints for unfair conduct as distributors with regard to their suppliers. The Authority has obliged the corporations concerned to pay a product route supervision fine.

The fined commercial enterprises include two multinational hypermarket chains – Auchan and Tesco –, two smaller supermarket chains, – Aldi and Reál –, and the pharmacist chain Rossmann. The Central Agriculture Office performed the related investigations on its own authority.

Auchan Hungary Limited and Reál Élelmiszer (Food) Limited were penalised for, amongst others, not fulfilling payments within the required, 30-day period. This put their suppliers in a disadvantageous situation. In addition, they had regularly asked some of their partners to sell their products at a lower price than the period of the special offers advertised in their stores would otherwise have justified. Another offence with relation to special offers is that they asked their suppliers for larger discounts than were subsequently passed to their consumers. The two supermarket chains also charged for services that were not performed in reality.

The Authority also fined Rossmann Hungary Trading Limited for, amongst other offences, paying invoices later than the allotted 30-day time limit, not fully passing on discounts provided by suppliers, and for charging for prohibited services.

Tesco and Aldi Hungary were fined for distributing goods at less than their purchasing price.

According to the Authority's reasoning, the fines are so high because the offences affected many suppliers and occurred continuously. All of the companies fined several million forints asked the court to review the decision of the Central Agriculture Office.

Monitoring and spot checks continue.

(Press Office of the Ministry of Rural Development)