Dutch court orders Heineken to pay €111m to Greek rival

Heineken and its Greek subsidiary Athenian Brewery have been ordered by the Amsterdam District Court to pay approximately €111 million in damages and accrued interest to Macedonian Thrace Brewery, following a competition dispute concerning the Greek beer market. The award relates to anticompetitive conduct between 1998 and 2014, although Heineken disputes the court’s assessment of the financial loss and has confirmed that it intends to appeal.

The court awarded Macedonian Thrace Brewery approximately €43.337 million in lost profits and €67.887 million in interest, bringing the combined amount to €111.224 million. Further interest and litigation-related costs are separate from those figures. The large interest component reflects the historical period covered by the dispute and the time taken to reach the damages judgment, rather than a second calculation of the claimant’s underlying commercial loss.

Macedonian Thrace Brewery produces Vergina beers and brought the civil action after a Greek competition investigation established infringements by Athenian Brewery. The Greek producer maintains that restrictions on competition damaged its ability to develop sales during the period under examination. Its claim sought financial compensation for the consequences of those practices, rather than the imposition of a new regulatory fine.

The Hellenic Competition Commission fined Athenian Brewery €31.5 million in 2015 for abusing its dominant position in beer production and distribution. The penalty was reduced to €26.7 million by the Athens Administrative Court of Appeal in 2017. That enforcement action established the regulatory response to the conduct, while the subsequent civil proceedings considered the financial losses claimed by an individual competitor.

The distinction matters to the interpretation of the October judgment. A competition authority imposes penalties to enforce market rules, whereas a civil damages action seeks to compensate a company that says it suffered commercial harm. The approximately €111 million award is a combination of compensation and accumulated interest, and should not be described as a fresh antitrust fine of the same amount.

The underlying conduct occurred in a market where the ability to reach customers and secure distribution can affect a brewery’s commercial position independently of its manufacturing capacity. Beer producers require access to wholesalers, hospitality venues and retail channels to turn production into sales. Restrictions associated with a dominant supplier can potentially affect the quantities a competitor sells, its achievable prices and the profitability of its operations.

Assessing compensation for those effects requires a comparison between the claimant’s actual performance and a hypothetical market in which the unlawful conduct did not occur. Such an assessment may consider likely sales volumes, prices, production costs and operating margins over the relevant years. Because the alternative market cannot be observed directly, the calculation depends on economic evidence and assumptions about how competition would otherwise have developed.

Heineken has challenged the assumptions used in the damages assessment. The brewer says Macedonian Thrace Brewery’s claim relied on unrealistic expectations about the quantities it would have sold, the prices available and the profitability it could have achieved under different market conditions. Heineken argues that those assumptions should be tested carefully against the economic evidence and the changes that occurred in Greece during the period covered by the claim.

The company also maintains that the amount awarded does not adequately reflect those considerations. Its stated appeal concerns the damages judgment and the court’s reasoning; the public response does not support presenting Heineken as having accepted the financial calculation. Until further proceedings are resolved, the October award remains a court decision that the company has announced it will challenge.

Macedonian Thrace Brewery has welcomed the ruling as an important outcome in its attempt to recover losses attributed to the historic infringement. Demetri Chriss, the company’s director of business development, described the decision as a major milestone after years of litigation. The claimant’s position differs from Heineken’s assessment of the amount of compensation, even though the court has now determined an award at this stage of the proceedings.

The dispute has also involved questions about the relationship between Heineken, based in the Netherlands, and Athenian Brewery, which carried out the activities in Greece. Macedonian Thrace Brewery pursued its claim through the Dutch courts against both companies. Earlier proceedings examined whether the parent and subsidiary could be brought before the same jurisdiction in a dispute arising from an infringement committed in another European country.

Those issues were considered in proceedings involving the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Dutch Supreme Court. The jurisdictional history is distinct from the October calculation of lost profits and interest. A ruling permitting a claim to proceed against related companies in a particular jurisdiction does not itself quantify the financial harm or settle every factual assumption used in assessing compensation.

The latest decision concerns historic conduct ending in 2014. It should not be interpreted as establishing that Athenian Brewery’s present manufacturing or distribution operations are engaging in the same practices. Heineken remains a major brewer in Greece through its subsidiary, while Macedonian Thrace Brewery continues to compete in the domestic beer market under its Vergina brand.

Commercial effects from a competition infringement can persist in litigation long after the conduct has ceased. In this case, the principal damages are considerably smaller than the accumulated interest, illustrating how the elapsed period affects the eventual financial exposure. The amount also depends on the court’s assessment of the claimant’s hypothetical commercial performance, which remains the subject of Heineken’s stated objections.

The case has significance beyond the two breweries because it involves private compensation proceedings against a multinational parent and its national subsidiary. However, the specific award concerns the evidence and legal findings in this dispute; it does not establish a general damages amount or calculation method applicable to every competition case in the beverage industry.

The Amsterdam District Court has determined a compensation and interest award exceeding €111 million, while Heineken has announced its intention to challenge that judgment. The next stage will be shaped by the appeal and any further assessment of the economic assumptions used to calculate Macedonian Thrace Brewery’s losses.