Denies liability after EU Commission hands €1.6 million bill.
Valve has been hit with more than a €1.6 million fine for violating European Union laws on geo-blocking practices. Bandai Namco, Cacpom, Focus Home, Koch Media, and ZeniMax were collectively fined €7.8 million for breaching antitrust rules. Geo-blocking refers to practices where publishers prevent customers from buying and activating copies in one region of the EU that were purchased from regions where games are priced lower to match decreased local income.
The European Union has extensive regulations that prohibit agreements between companies that prevent competition within the EU market. All five other companies cooperated with the investigation and received a heavier fine. Valve is the only one who did not cooperate. Focus Home received the heaviest fine at €2.8 million.
Bilateral agreements and/or concerted practices between Valve and each of the five PC video game publisher implemented by means of geo-blocked Steam activation keys which prevented the activation of certain of these publishers’ PC video games outside Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, in response to unsolicited consumer requests (so-called “passive sales”). These lasted between one and five years and were implemented, depending on the cases, between September 2010 and October 2015.
Valve released a statement of intent to appeal to The Verge. The Commission notes that any person or company affected by the anti-competitive behavior may be eligible for damages.
Source: EU Report
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