The same parties also claimed that the largest producer in the Union charged higher prices in the Union than on other markets and recorder higher revenues in 2010 in the Union than elsewhere.

If no legislative action is taken at Community level, such costs will continue to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices or, worse, businesses will continue to refuse to sell cross-border or create geographical discriminations between consumers depending on their country of residence.

It may also result from indirect measures aimed at inducing the distributor not to sell to such customers, such as refusal or reduction of bonuses or discounts, termination of supply, reduction of supplied volumes or limitation of supplied volumes to the demand within the allocated territory or customer group, threat of contract termination, requiring a higher price for products to be exported, limiting the proportion of sales that can be exported or profit pass-over obligations.

If no legislative action is taken at Community level, such costs will continue to be passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices or, worse, businesses will continue to refuse to sell cross-border or create geographical discriminations between consumers depending on their country of residence.

Moreover, the price of electricity on different markets in recent years shows the benefits of ownership unbundling: over the last 10 years, vertically integrated companies have raised prices more, and maintained higher prices, than fully unbundled ones.

(107) There are four main negative effects on competition: (1) other suppliers in that market cannot sell to the particular buyers and this may lead to foreclosure of the market or, in the case of tying, to foreclosure of the market for the tied product; (2) it makes market shares more rigid and this may help collusion when applied by several suppliers; (3) as far as the distribution of final goods is concerned, the particular retailers will only sell one brand and there will therefore be no inter-brand competition in their shops (no in-store competition); and (4) in the case of tying, the buyer may pay a higher price for the tied produc ...[+++]t than he would otherwise do.