Cleary Gottlieb National Competition Report

On December 1, 2009, the Austrian Supreme Court (the “Court”) rejected an appeal by Bauer Media Group (“Bauer”), a German publishing house, against a decision by the Cartel Court on certain anticompetitive clauses contained in its distribution agreement with Pressegroßvertrieb Salzburg (“Pressegroßvertrieb”) (now Valora
Services), the major wholesale distributor of print media in Austria. 1 Under the agreement in question (which concerned consumer magazines), Pressegroßvertrieb was appointed the sole distributor for Austria (with territorial protection) and was obliged to include resale price maintenance clauses in its own contracts with retailers.