Thursday, October 11, 2007

Bayer - Aspirin: Achtung! - Kopfschmerztablette!

German antitrust officials searched the offices of Bayer on Thursday, saying the drugmaker was under suspicion for illegal price-fixing involving aspirin.

A spokeswoman for the antitrust agency said Bayer Vital, a subsidiary of the Levenkusen-based company, was under suspicion of having fixed prices at pharmacies in Germany to keep the retail price of the painkiller artificially inflated.

''According to national and European competition law, it is illegal for manufacturers to control the sales price of the merchants and it can be punished with fines,'' said Silke Kaul, a spokeswoman for the antitrust agency.

German news magazine Stern first reported Wednesday that Bayer was under suspicion of having fixed prices with more than 11,000 pharmacies in Germany.

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