萬國法律事務所

Carrefour (家樂福) recently acquired the Wellcome (頂好) chain of supermarkets in Taiwan, and in order to install the new decorations in the old Wellcome stores, Carrefour allegedly requested suppliers to pay additional fees to renovate the 196 markets as new style “Market 便利購”.  Eleven guilds angrily petitioned the Fair Trade Commission (公平交易委員會, “FTC”) and accused Carrefour of abusing its dominance to request inappropriate additional fees. 
 
FTC Vice Chairperson, Andy C.M. Chen (陳志民), stated that the FTC has put the matter on record and is set to investigate, and further noted that the FTC will request Carrefour to clarify the situation.  If Carrefour’s request for additional fees is considered to be “obviously unfair conduct that is able to affect the trading order” as prescribed at Article 25 of the “Fair Trade Act (公平交易法)”, such request could be punished with an administrative fine of up to NTD 25 million by the FTC.
 
Vice Chairperson Chen further stated that there are specific regulations and principles to govern and deal with additional fees in transactions between large-scale distribution enterprises and suppliers.  Any distribution enterprise and a supplier can reach an agreement for additional fees.  However, the content of such agreement must be reasonable, fair, and substantially related to the promotion of products and commodities. 
 
The substantive relationship must be obvious.  If there is any unreasonable condition, the same might constitute a violate of Article 25 of the Fair Trade Act.  Vice Chairperson Chen mentioned that the eleven guildes assert that the relationship between the additional fees requested by Carrefour and the products and commodities supplied is not obvious, is unreasonable, and is disproportionate.  Nonetheless, Vice Chairperson Chen emphasized that the facts still need to be explained by Carrefour in order to assist FTC with the investigation.