Matas is the largest health and beauty retailer in Denmark.
It offers a distinctive one-stop retail concept which serves a broad range of health,
beauty, household and personal care needs. The Matas Store Network consists of
a network of 293 Matas stores in Denmark.
A-apoteket is the biggest pharma retail chain in Denmark
comprising 112 pharmacies, 35 branches and 58 outlets.
In 2011 the Danish legislation was amended allowing the
pharmacists to freely establish so-called “medicine delivery points” all over
the country. A medicine delivery point is normally established in cooperation
with a different company, e.g. a supermarket, as a “shop-in-shop” concept. Uldum
Apotek took advantage of the change and made an agreement with Matas. Uldum
Apotek is a former member of A-apoteket, Denmark’s largest purchasing
association for pharmacists.
A-apoteket decided to oust Uldum Apotek because
of the partnership with Matas – even though A-apoteket is only involved in
negotiating discount deals on non-pharmaceuticals and the partnership with
Matas was limited to pharmaceuticals, i.e. the partnership concerned a
different product market.
The Danish Competition Authority expressed
concerns that a decision to prohibit a member to establish medicine delivery
points in Matas’ shops, and to expel the member for refusing to comply with the
exclusion, could significantly restrict competition on the pharmaceutical
markets. Especially taken into account that (I) the establishment of medicine
delivery points are the only real way for pharmacists to compete, (II) Matas is
one of the most obvious partners for such an enterprise and (III) the
partnership with Matas did not appear to negatively influence A-apoteket’s
work, and thus the decision made by A-apoteket could not be considered
ancillary to the operation of A-apoteket.
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