EU To Investigate Delivery Hero, Glovo Over Food Delivery Cartel Concerns

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The European Commission announced a formal investigation into Berlin-based food delivery giant Delivery Hero and its Spanish subsidiary, Glovo, on Tuesday, citing cartel concerns. The Commission will launch an in-depth probe into agreements between the online delivery firms to establish whether any anticompetitive activity has taken place. "The Commission is concerned that, before the takeover, Delivery Hero and Glovo may have allocated geographic markets and shared commercially sensitive information (e.g., on commercial strategies, prices, capacity, costs, product characteristics)," the Commission wrote in a press release. "The Commission is also concerned that the companies may have agreed not to poach each other's employees. These practices could have been facilitated by Delivery Hero's minority share in Glovo." The move follows unannounced raids conducted on the two companies' local offices in July 2022 and November 2023. From July 2018, Delivery Hero held a minority share in Glovo -- going on to acquire sole control in July 2022, per the Commission, which noted that this is the first investigation it has undertaken into anti-competitive agreements "that may have occurred in the context of a minority shareholding by one operator in a competitor." [...] Earlier this month, the German delivery giant warned investors it could ultimately face an antitrust fine of up to 400 million euros over the EU antitrust issue.

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