In practice, in addition to the supply agreements themselves, the relationship between firms operating retail chains and their suppliers is commonly governed by various kinds of ancillary agreements concerning for example logistics, IT, or marketing matters.

The special services that appear in agreements of this kind, which retail chains provide to suppliers for a fee, have become the subject of numerous court disputes based on the statutory ban on “slotting fees”. This is a term used to described the tort of “charging fees other than the retail margin for receiving goods to be sold”, which is a practice regulated under Article 15 (1) of the Act of 16 April 1993 on Combating Unfair Competition (text: ISAP). It is an example of an unfair competition offence referred to by the legislature as “obstructing other firms’ access to the market”.

Today’s Supreme Court judgement (case no. I CSK 651/15) is an example of the latest adjudication on the subject of slotting fees.

See also in NEWS: Annual bonus for accepting goods for sale as unfair slotting fee…