European Commission imposes €329m fines on food delivery companies

On 2 June 2025, the EC announced a significant decision involving two major players in the online food delivery sector, Delivery Hero and Glovo.  The EC imposed fines totalling €329 million on these companies for their involvement in a cartel that violated EU competition laws.

Findings of the EC

The key findings of the EC, found to be in breach of EU antitrust laws, are the following:

• No-Poach Agreement: Delivery Hero and Glovo agreed not to poach each other's employees, which was initially part of a shareholders' agreement when Delivery Hero acquired a minority stake in Glovo. This agreement was later expanded to a general no-hire policy.

• Exchange of Sensitive Information: The companies exchanged commercially sensitive information, including strategies, prices, and market capacities, which allowed them to align their market conduct.

• Market Allocation: Delivery Hero and Glovo also divided geographic markets within the European Economic Area (EEA), avoiding competition in each other's territories and coordinating market entries.

For their conduct, Delivery Hero was fined €223,285,000, while Glovo was fined €105,732,000.  Both companies admitted their involvement and settled the case, receiving a 10% reduction in fines under the EC's settlement procedure.

This case marks a notable precedent in the EC's enforcement record, as it is the first time the EC has identified and sanctioned a cartel in the labour market, specifically addressing anti-competitive practices facilitated through minority shareholding.

The EC's first test-case against no-poach agreements

To date, no-poach agreements had been investigated mainly at national level, and even the Delivery Hero/Glovo investigation originated with an anonymous complaint made to a national competition authority.  In the past, proceedings against no-poach agreements have been opened in EU countries like Spain, Belgium, France and Portugal.

For example, in Spain, in 2010 the Spanish competition authority imposed fines of more than EUR 14 million on road transport service providers for operating a cartel that included, as part of its terms, a no-poach agreement (decision in Spanish available here).  In Belgium, in 2024 the Belgian Competition Authority announced a fine of more than EUR 47 million on Securitas for engaging in no-poach agreements.  In France, the French Competition Authority published in 2023 that it had sent statement of objections to a series of engineering, consultancy and IT companies, related to alleged competition violations in the labour market.  In Portugal, between 2022 and 2025 the Portuguese Competition Authority fined large technology companies over EUR 7 million for concluding no-poach agreements (see press release), and also fined 31 Portuguese football clubs a total of EUR 11.3 million for similar practices (see press release).

In May 2024, the EC warned in its Policy Brief on Antitrust in Labour Markets against wage-fixing and no-poach agreements, stating that they generally qualify as restrictions "by object" under Article 101(1) TFEU.  Now, the EC has set its first enforcement test-case, by imposing hefty fines on companies engaging in this kind of practices.  The case may well serve as an example for the future application of EU competition laws, as it has been adopted under a settlement decision and, therefore, appeals before the EU General Court are unlikely. 

Targeting minority shareholdings in competitors

Minority shareholdings possibly leading to collusion among competitors have long been investigated by the EC.

For example, in 2014, the EC considered whether it should broaden its jurisdiction under EU merger control rules to noncontrolling stakes (see Section 3 of the 2014 White Paper "Towards more effective EU merger control").  However, in a final position it adopted on the matter, it concluded that cases in which minority stakes can be problematic are relatively rare, and no legislative changes were proposed to the EU's merger control regime.

Notwithstanding this, minority shareholdings have formed part of the policy objectives and enforcement priorities of the EC for some time, including under former EC Vice-President and Competition Commissioner Ms. Vestager, who declared in 2018 that "it's becoming more common for the same investors to hold shares in different companies in the same industry. And for those investors, fierce competition might not seem so appealing."

Minority shareholdings were not specifically part of EC President Von der Leyen's mission letter to Vice-President and Competition Commissioner Ms. Ribera in December 2024.  Notwithstanding this, they can be indirectly brought under the blanket of broader issues that Ms. Ribera is deemed to cover in her mandate, such as the review of the Horizontal Merger Guidelines or the targeting of "killer acquisitions".

Conclusion

The EC's fining decision against Delivery Hero and Glovo is an important precedent that is likely to define the enforcement agenda in the coming years.  It confirms that no-poach agreements will be looked at by authorities as individual potential restrictions of competition.  This is now not only the case at national level, but also at pan-European level, an issue that might affect international companies operating across the EU. 

The EC's decision also puts emphasis on the importance of corporate structures analyses in the context of EU competition law enforcement.  It shows that enforcers do not need to face complex instances of inter-locking directorates for competition issues to arise: holding a minority stake in a competitor, instrumentalized to gain access to competitively sensitive information and to coordinate the commercial conduct of both companies, may be a significant finding to prove an EU competition breach.  In light of this, companies may find it prudent to review their shareholdings in companies in a given sector, their shareholder agreements, and other corporate structures they might have in place which could give rise to competition concerns.