Luxembourg - A European Court on Thursday reduced a multimillion-euro (dollar) fine imposed by EU officials on Nintendo after the Japanese maker of popular video game consoles and game cartridges such as Super Mario Bros agreed to cooperate in an anti- trust investigation. In 2002, the European Commission found Nintendo and six of its European distributors guilty of setting up a complex of agreements designed to prevent parallel exports of its products, thus reducing competition.
The practice, carried out between 1991 and 1997, saw Nintendo punish distributors that allowed parallel imports of its products with a reduction in supplies and even a total boycott.
The Japanese maker was subsequently fined 149.1 million euros (198.7 million dollars), while its distributors in Britain, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Greece, Belgium and Luxembourg received combined fines totalling a further 18.7 million euros.
But after British distributor John Menzies was granted a discount by the commission for cooperating with the authorities, judges in Luxembourg on Thursday ruled that the same should apply to Nintendo and reduced its fine to 119.2 million euros.
"The Court recalled that the basic amount of the fine may be reduced where the undertaking has effectively cooperated in the proceedings," judges said.
"In the contested decision, the Commission took account of John Menzies's cooperation, with the result that it reduced that undertaking's fine by 40 per cent. The Court held that pursuant to the principle of equal treatment, since Nintendo produced the relevant documents at the same stage of the procedure and its cooperation must be regarded as comparable, it must benefit in this respect from the same level of reduction of fine," judges said.
