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Beverage giant, Coca-cola, has been fined 39 million new shekels ($11 million), in Israel, for abuse of monopoly.
The Israel Competition Authority said on Tuesday that Coca-Cola Israel was found guilty of six infractions which include; imposing a policy that prohibited placing competing products in its retail clients’ refrigerators and excluding competing refrigerators from sales points; introducing a clause in trade agreements with retailers, whereby it could cancel the agreements if customers significantly reduced purchases from the company, and conditioning a discount on Coca-Cola drinks on the purchase of other products from the company.
The company was also found guilty of stopping the supply to retailers which were also selling parallel-imported Coca-Cola products.
According to the competition authority, Coca-Cola weakened the competitiveness of other companies, making it difficult for them to sell products, and hindered the possibility of price reductions, which violated Israel’s Economic Competition Law.