PARIS — The European Commission announced Friday it has opened formal antitrust proceedings to probe allegations that several luxury watch makers refused to supply spare parts to independent repairers.
The Brussels-based commission, the executive body of the European Union, did not name names in the investigation, which will seek to establish whether EU competition rules have been breached, but is not based on any conclusive proof.
A spokesman for Compagnie Financière Richemont, whose watch brands include Jaeger-LeCoultre, IWC and Piaget, had no comment on the announcement. Officials at Swatch Group, the world’s largest watchmaker with brands including Omega, Breguet and Swatch, did not respond to a request for comment.
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The probe, which could take months or years depending on its complexity, was launched on the basis of a Dec. 15, 2010, ruling by the General Court, an independent court attached to the European Court of Justice.
In it, the General Court canceled the EC’s previous 2008 decision to reject a complaint lodged by the European Confederation of Watch & Clock Repairers’ Associations (CEAHR) alleging that watch manufacturers had been refusing to supply parts to independent multibrand retailers since 2002.
“CEAHR’s complaint alleges that since there are no alternative sources for most of these spare parts, this practice threatens to drive independent retailers out of business,” the commission stated.
The commission initially rejected the complaint, citing lack of interest, but the General Court ruled that the commission had not sufficiently motivated its conclusion.