Dive Summary:
- Anheuser-Busch InBev and Carlsberg could face fines totalling hundreds of millions of euros, depending on the outcome of an investigation by Germany’s Federal Cartel Office.
- Authorities are looking into claims that the beer giants may have worked together to fix prices for almost two decades after previously suspecting such activity from 2006-2008.
- The new details come from a 100-plus-page report that officials shared with the German publication Focus.
From the article:
... Reports of widespread price fixing aren’t the only instance of bad news for Germany’s beer industry in recent years. National beer consumption is on the decline, and the number of German breweries has fallen by roughly one-half in recent decades, according to Slate. Germans have even coined a new word, brauereisterben, to describe this “brewery death.” ...