In the area of unfair trading practices, the focus of 2023 was on outreach, which continues to be important and is planned to continue this year. In addition to raising awareness, outreach is necessary to establish a relationship of trust between the producer/seller and the Competition Authority. In turn, the establishment of a relationship of trust is extremely necessary to alleviate the fear factor that characterises the field, which is characterised by the seller’s fear of irritating/losing the buyer as its contractual partner, for example, in the case of exercising its legal right to cooperate with the Competition Authority during an investigation.
Other Member States are also talking about the fear factor in this field, and it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed. Direct communication in a pressure-free atmosphere and format is a good way to alleviate the fear factor and it already seems to be bearing the first fruits – more and more parties feel free to contact us with questions and concerns. Thanks to these inquiries, the Competition Authority is initiating new proceedings to investigate unfair trading practices.
Last year, the Authority was most often asked for its position on the legality of the logistics fee applied by purchasers. The logistics fee is charged in a situation where the buyer has many stores across Estonia, but the seller delivers the goods to the buyer’s central warehouse and the buyer organises the delivery of the goods to the retail stores. Such an activity is directly related to the sale of agricultural and food products by the seller, and is not prohibited if agreed by the parties. It is important to emphasise that for this there must be a bilateral agreement, and the buyer is prohibited from unilaterally modifying the contract and charging a logistics fee if the parties have not previously agreed to this.