Descuentos de fidelidad y abuso de posición de dominio

Loyalty rebates offered subject to the condition that the customer buys all or most of its needs of a given product from a supplier, are presumed to be illegal when granted by a dominant company. The judgement of the General Court in the Intel case seemed to qualify this presumption as a iuris et de iure one. The Court of Justice revokes this judgment and rules that when a dominant company proves that the discounts it has offered did not have the capacity to restrict competition nor to produce exclusionary effects, it is not possible to conclude that a dominant position was abused just because of the fact that the discount was offered. When this analysis is related to offers made to pharmacies or hospitals at the time of negotiating the purchase of medicines, special characteristics of the legal and economic context of the pharmaceutical industry shall undoubtedly be of material importance.