Ölgerðin to review university sponsorship contracts

Ölgerðin will review sponsorship agreements with university student associations after a television report examined the beverage company’s business practices, mbl.is reported. The agreements discussed in the programme included terms restricting associations from doing business with other beverage suppliers.

In the Kveik programme, Friðjón Hólbertsson, managing director of wholesaler Steindal, said Ölgerðin had subjected his company to “mild bullying” in an effort to keep its products off the market. Steindal holds the distribution rights for Red Bull. Hólbertsson said Ölgerðin had made agreements with bars and nightclubs to prevent them from selling the energy drink.

In a statement after the programme, Ölgerðin said business practices of this kind had been common in the market for a long time. It acknowledged that its operations had expanded considerably in recent years and that it now competes in almost every beverage category, leading in some of them.

The company said that if it is considered dominant in the market, competition law places additional obligations on it. The Competition Authority searched Ölgerðin’s headquarters before the weekend as part of an investigation into suspected breaches of competition law.

Ölgerðin said it would continue cooperating with the authority. “If it turns out that anything in Ölgerðin’s conduct in the market does not stand up to scrutiny, we will review it,” the company said.