This article focuses on the French competition authorities’ analysis of the validity, from a competition law perspective, of various distribution policies implemented by pharmaceutical companies in France which aimed to reduce parallel trade. In France, the pharmaceutical sector is notably characterised by: the existence of a specific “export–only” wholesaler status; numerous but imprecise public service obligations on “fullline” wholesalers which in particular require that they permanently supply all pharmacists with all products in a given time period; a strict capping of end retail prices and also of financial advantages (margins, rebates, etc.) which operators on the national market may grant or benefit from; and a quasitotal market transparency (in terms of both prices and volume). In this context, the French competition authorities have considered to be legitimate some of the policies which unilaterally limit parallel trade, in some cases by discriminating between export–only and full–line wholesalers. Although none of the pharmaceutical companies concerned had actually implemented dual pricing policies in France, the Court of Appeal went as far (in anticipation) as validating such policies in principleÐthus following before the issue was even dealt with at European level, the direction that the European Court of Justice has invited the Commission to follow in its recent Glaxo Dual Pricing judgment. The Competition Council, through its various decisions, has now in fact regulated the relationships between the various operators in the market. Its final commitment decisions raise, however, the question of to what extent a competition should be entitled to use commitment procedures as a preventive regulatory tool.
World Competition