Editing Heineken N.V. (section)

===Price fixing===
On 18 April 2007 the [[European Commission]] fined Heineken  €219.3m, [[Grolsch]] €31.65m and [[Bavaria Brewery (Netherlands)|Bavaria]]  €22.85m for operating a [[cartel|price fixing cartel]] in the Netherlands, totalling €273.7m. [[InBev]], (formerly [[Interbrew]]), escaped without a penalty because it provided "decisive information" about the cartel which operated between 1996 and 1999 and others in the EU market. The brewers controlled 95% of the Dutch market, with Heineken claiming a half and the three others 15% each.<ref name="beer">{{Cite news |last=Gow |first=David |date=18 April 2007 |title=Heineken and Grolsch fined for price-fixing |work=[[The Guardian]] |location=London |url=http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2059542,00.html |access-date=1 August 2007}}</ref>

[[Neelie Kroes]] said she was "very disappointed" that the collusion took place at the very highest (boardroom) level. She added, Heineken, Grolsch, Bavaria and InBev tried to cover their tracks by using code names and abbreviations for secret meetings to carve up the market for beer sold to supermarkets, [[hotels]], [[restaurants]] and [[cafes]]. The [[price fixing]] extended to cheaper [[Store brand|own-brand]] labels and [[Rebate (marketing)|rebates]] for bars.<ref name="beer" />

In 2004 Heineken and [[Kronenbourg]] (then part of [[Scottish and Newcastle]]), the two dominant brewers in France, were fined €2.5m – with the penalty reduced for co-operating.<ref name="beer" />
{{Blockquote|text=This is simply unacceptable: that major beer suppliers colluded to up prices and to carve up markets among themselves<ref name="beer" />|author=Neelie Kroes, EU Competition Commissioner}}