ANTI-TRUST POLICY : EU SLAPS FINE ON PROFESSIONAL BODY OF FRENCH PHARMACISTS.

• Position: European Union and Ordre national des pharmaciens - Brief article

On 8 December 2010, the European Commission fined the Ordre national des pharmaciens (ONP) and its governing bodies 5 million for imposing minimum prices on the French market for clinical laboratory tests. The EU executive judged that the organisation had contravened EU rules concerning restrictive business practices (Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU).

The Commission explained that, since October 2003, ONP decisions have been systematically targeted at undertakings associated with groups of laboratories with the aim of impeding their development on the French market and slowing down or preventing acquisitions and statutory changes or changes in the capital of these undertakings. Furthermore, between September 2004 and September 2007, the ONP took decisions aimed at imposing minimum prices, to the detriment in particular of state hospitals and state health insurance bodies, by seeking to prohibit discounts of over 10% on the public prices granted by private undertakings under...