Question 7 AdAstra, MarsColony and MoonShine belong to the corporate group known as LunarCentric. On instruction from LunarCentric, they enter into an agreement in which they partition the EU market among themselves and agree to fix prices for their goods. Is there a violation of Article 101?Why? Case Case 30/87 -Corinne Bodson v Pompes funèbres des régions libérées [1988] Question 8 Utopimedicine is a pharmaceutical company based in the Netherlands. Medicare and other medical companies buy medicine from Utopimedicine in bulk in the Netherlands and export it to Spain and France. Because of a law in the Netherlands, Utopimedicine must adhere to a price cap on the medicine whereas no such law exists in Spain and France. Utopimedicine is forced to sell the medicine at a higher price when they sell it in Spain and France. Medicare takes advantage of this situation by selling the medicine at a lower price in those countries effectively eating into Utopimedicine's market share. Utopimedicine devises a plan to reduce these exports. In their contracts of sale, they include terms to supply the medicine to the distributors at even lower prices and access to licenses and the know-how to manufacture some their patented medicines but only to distributors selling exclusively in the Netherlands Distributors selling in Spain and France would not enjoy these benefits. Medicare and the other distributors accepted the new terms. Does this count as an agreement under Article 101? Case Case T-41/96 - Bayer v Commission [2000] Case C-74/04P-Commission v Volkswagen [2006]

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Question 7 AdAstra, MarsColony and MoonShine belong to the corporate group known as LunarCentric. On instruction from LunarCentric, they enter into an agreement in which they partition the EU market among themselves and agree to fix prices for their goods. Is there a violation of Article 101?Why? Case Case 30/87 -Corinne Bodson v Pompes funèbres des régions libérées [1988] Question 8 Utopimedicine is a pharmaceutical company based in the Netherlands. Medicare and other medical companies buy medicine from Utopimedicine in bulk in the Netherlands and export it to Spain and France. Because of a law in the Netherlands, Utopimedicine must adhere to a price cap on the medicine whereas no such law exists in Spain and France. Utopimedicine is forced to sell the medicine at a higher price when they sell it in Spain and France. Medicare takes advantage of this situation by selling the medicine at a lower price in those countries effectively eating into Utopimedicine's market share. Utopimedicine devises a plan to reduce these exports. In their contracts of sale, they include terms to supply the medicine to the distributors at even lower prices and access to licenses and the know-how to manufacture some their patented medicines but only to distributors selling exclusively in the Netherlands Distributors selling in Spain and France would not enjoy these benefits. Medicare and the other distributors accepted the new terms. Does this count as an agreement under Article 101? Case Case T-41/96 - Bayer v Commission [2000] Case C-74/04P-Commission v Volkswagen [2006]

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**Question 7:** Yes, there is a violation of Article 101. The agreement between AdAstra, MarsColony, and MoonShine to partition the EU market and fix prices constitutes anti-competitive behavior under Article 101(1) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 101 prohibits agreements between undertakings that prevent, restrict, or distort competition within the internal market. Market partitioning and price-fixing are considered serious infringements of competition law as they harm consumer welfare and disrupt the free functioning of the market. --- **Question 8:** Yes, this counts as an agreement under Article 101. Utopimedicine's plan to include terms in their contracts that discriminate against distributors selling in Spain and France by offering benefits only to those selling exclusively in the Netherlands constitutes a restriction of competition. Such agreements can be seen as limiting parallel trade and distorting competition within the EU internal market, which violates Article 101(1) TFEU. Even if the distributors accepted these terms, it does not negate the anti-competitive nature of the agreement.

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