The EU has fined German-based food courier firm Delivery Hero and its Spain-based unit Glovo nearly 330 million euros for participating in a cartel which involved an agreement not to poach each other's workers, according to media outlet reports, including Reuters.
EU regulators said the cartel was being operated from July 2018 until the same month in 2022, as Delivery Hero boosted a minority stake in Glovo to 94 percent in July 2022, Reuters reported.
In an agreement with the EU to reduce the fine by 10 percent, the firms admitted to having taken part in the cartel. Delivery Hero was ordered to pay 220 million euros while Glovo was fined nearly 110 million euros.
Delivery Hero and Glovo are two of the biggest home delivery companies in Europe. They deliver food, meals and other products to customers who use mobile apps to order and pay for the service.
In 2015 Delivery Hero acquired the Munich-based meal delivery company Foodora, which has operated in Finland for years.
In April, Finland's Consumer Ombudsman called on Foodora to revise its pricing practices, saying that the company's app had failed to clearly show customers the full prices of its services.
Foodora's biggest competitor in Finland is Wolt, which was acquired by the US-based delivery giant Doordash in 2022.
