Case
Decision 21-D-14 of French Competition Authority (FCA) regarding Kärcher SAS
An Analysis Group team, led by Managing Principal Antoine Chapsal, Principal Emmanuel Frot, and Manager Lucien Frys provided economic support to Kärcher SAS and its counsels, Cleary Gottlieb and HWH, in their successful bid to obtain a dismissal of the French Competition Authority’s (FCA’s) resale price maintenance claims. After almost 10 years of proceedings, the FCA concluded that the German power cleaning equipment manufacturer’s recommended resale pricing practices did not amount to anticompetitive resale price maintenance.
The Analysis Group team provided analysis and critiques of economic arguments advanced by the FCA. In particular, the team’s expert reports demonstrated that the retailers made their own pricing decisions without regard to Kärcher’s recommended prices, and that Kärcher had no reaction to these pricing decisions. In such a context, recommended prices cannot have anticompetitive effects.
In addition, using disaggregated data, the team showed that pricing policies, as well as promotional offers, varied across retailers and shops in accordance with their commercial conditions and competitive environment, thereby invalidating the theory of harm presented by the investigation services. Dr. Chapsal presented the results of Analysis Group’s analyses before the FCA’s ruling body.
Testifiers
Antoine Chapsal
Dr. Chapsal is an economist who specializes in empirical and theoretical industrial organization. He has provided economic expertise in a large number of high-profile cases involving mergers, cartels, information exchanges, abuses of dominant positions, regulation, intellectual property matters, and damages quantifications. Recent examples include the Lafarge/Holcim and Fnac/Darty mergers, as well as airfreight, cathode ray tube, and elevator cartel cases. Dr. Chapsal has also assisted various firms in designing optimized pricing strategies and dealing with policy issues. His reports have been presented to the competition authorities of France, Germany, Austria, and South Africa; the European Commission; the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf; and the Court of Appeals, Conseil d’Etat, Conseil constitutionnel, and Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.
Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Chapsal founded MAPP, a Paris- and Brussels-based economic consultancy, which was acquired by KPMG in 2018. Previously, he worked in a US competition economics consultancy. Dr. Chapsal regularly publishes articles on competition economics, on subjects ranging from the econometric analysis of cartels to geographic market delineation and exclusionary strategies. He is an affiliated professor at the Sciences Po Department of Economics and a member of the CESifo academic research network.
Meet Our People
Emmanuel Frot
PrincipalDr. Frot is an economist with specialized expertise in applying quantitative analyses to competition, litigation, regulatory, and business intelligence issues. He advises firms in a wide range of industries, providing economic and econometric expertise on matters related to mergers, market concentrations, cartel investigations, and damages.
Over the years, he has performed numerous economic and econometric analyses in Phase I and Phase II mergers before the French Competition Authority and the European Commission, including Veolia Transport/Transdev, Jardiland/InVivo, Castel/Patriarche, Fnac/Nature & Découvertes, d’aucy/Triskalia, Lactalis/Nuova Castelli, Lactalis/Leerdammer, CMA CGM / Bolloré Logistics, Canal+/OCS, and Suez/Veolia. He has led case teams and performed economic analyses in several prominent horizontal and vertical cartel cases, as well as estimated damages in antitrust litigation and intellectual property matters. He has also assisted companies in modeling and implementing changes to pricing behavior.
His reports have been presented to the European Commission, the French Competition Authority, the Court of Appeals, the Conseil d’État (France’s highest administrative court), the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris, and regulators in the telecommunications, energy, transportation, and gambling sectors. Dr. Frot has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals and regularly speaks at international competition law and policy conferences.
Lucien Frys
ManagerDr. Frys specializes in the application of market design, microeconomic, and statistical principles to antitrust disputes, litigation, and arbitration. He has analyzed economic and statistical issues and helped draft reports in cases involving vertical and horizontal mergers, cartels, abuse of dominance, and retail price maintenance. Dr. Frys’s experience spans industries such as retail, agriculture, food processing, payment systems, waste and water management, energy, luxury goods, and technology. He has supported experts before multiple authorities and courts, including the French Competition Authority (FCA), the European Commission Directorate-General for Competition (DG COMP), the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) International Court of Arbitration, and the Düsseldorf court of appeal. Prior to joining Analysis Group, Dr. Frys assisted the French government in developing an algorithm to assign French first-year students to universities.