The company behind Oreo and Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate, Mondelez, has been fined €337.5 million ($366 million) for obstructing trade in chocolate, cookies, and coffee among EU nations in an effort to maintain high pricing.

The EU’s competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, claimed in a statement on Thursday that Mondelez had unlawfully restricted cross-border sales inside the EU in order to keep its product prices higher.

The cost of groceries is at issue in this case. During a news conference, she continued, “It’s a major worry for European citizens and even more visibly in times of very high inflation, where many are in a cost-of-living crisis.

The European Commission, which started looking into the case in 2019, found that Mondelez International (MDLZ) had deliberately restricted cross-border trade and abused “its dominant position” in some national markets for the sale of chocolate bars. It launched a formal investigation in 2021.

Among other things, the company had ceased supplying chocolate bars in the Netherlands to prevent them from being imported into Belgium, where Mondelez was selling the same products at higher prices, the EU’s executive arms said in the statement.

“The commission concluded that Mondelez’s illegal practices prevented retailers from being able to freely source products in EU member states with lower prices,” it added.

A spokesperson for Mondelez International said the penalty related to “isolated incidents, most of which ceased or were remedied well in advance of the commission’s investigation.”

“This historical matter is not representative of who we are or the strong culture of compliance for which we strive… This is why we will continue to place emphasis on our overall compliance culture and have strengthened our annual mandatory compliance program to reflect learnings,” the spokesperson added.

Mondelez made an accrual for the fine last year, and no further measures will be necessary to finance it.

According to the EU, the company’s illegal practices date as far back as 2006 and include refusing to supply a wholesaler in Germany in order to prevent the resale of chocolate bars in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria and Romania, where prices were higher. In another case, Mondelez required a customer to charge higher prices for exports compared with domestic sales.

$366 million was fined to Oreo maker Mondelez for manipulating European markets.

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