An Ice Cream War: The Law & Economics of Freezer Exclusivity
London, England
29 January 2004
Hosted By: NERA Economic Consulting
"The war here will only last two months. It is far too hot for sustained fighting... we will all melt like ice cream in the sun!"
-- British Soldier, East Africa October 1914, from the Prologue of William Boyd, "An Ice Cream War"
The Ice Cream freezer war between Unilever and Mars began in 1989, and reached another critical point in late 2003 with the Court of First Instance judgment in the Masterfoods case. In 1994, Brick Court Chambers Barrister Aidan Robertson (then Law Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford) and NERA Director Dr. Mark Williams (then Economics Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford) studied the UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) report on Ice Cream and in January 1995 published their case analysis in the European Competition Law Review. They argued that the MMC had erred, and incorrectly cleared Unilever of anticompetitive conduct. Since then ice cream freezer exclusivity has been dealt with by the European Courts as well as many national agencies and courts. In October 2003 the Court of First Instance passed judgment upholding a March 1998 MMC decision in which Unilever's freezer exclusivity was considered to be anticompetitive. Unilever has appealed the decision.
On 29 January 2004 NERA hosted a seminar that discussed the implications of the Masterfoods judgment on the Ice Cream case. Mr. Robertson and Dr. Williams provided a retrospective on a competition policy war that itself almost continued after the Armistice "because no one told them to stop."
To contact us about this event, please click here.
