Division (16)

To assess a possible coordination of the majors’ wholesale prices, the Commission analysed the parallelism of the development of (inflation-corrected) average net prices for the top 100 single albums of each major in the five largest Member States (this is considered a representative sample as the top 100 single albums account for approximately 70 to 80 % of the majors’ respective total music sales). Secondly, the Commission examined whether any price coordination could have been reached in using list prices (PPDs) as focal points. Thirdly, the Commission analysed whether the different majors’ discounts were aligned and sufficiently transparent in order to allow effective monitoring of competitive behaviour.