Network Foods International Pty Ltd v Cadbury Schweppes Pty Ltd [1988] FCA 457

JUDGMENT No. ARTA SB ae

CATCHWORDS

Trade Practices - Authorizations and notifications - General

matters - Notification of exclusive dealing - Required content of notice.

Trade Practices Act 1974 - ss. 46, 47, 93

NETWORK FOODS INTERNATIONAL PTY. LTD. v. CADBURY SCHWEPPES PTY. LTD.

No. VG321 of 1988

Jenkinson J. Melbourne 11 August, 1988

23 AUG 1988

F RAL COURT O FEDER YSTRALIA

RINCIPAL REGISTRY

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IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA ) VICTORIA DISTRICT REGISTRY ) No. VG321 of 1988

GENERAL DIVISION ) BETWEEN: NETWORK FOODS INTERNATIONAL PTY. LTD. Applicant AND: CADBURY SCHWEPPES PTY. LTD. Respondent

CORAM: Jenkinson J. PLACE: Melbourne DATE: 11 August, 1988

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT Application for a mandatory interlocutory injunction.

The applicant is a wholesaler of chocolates and other confectionery. The respondent is a manufacturer of both chocolates and confectionery, to which I shall refer collectively as confectionery. The confectionery products which the applicant has been buying from the respondent provide the applicant with about one third of its confectionery sales revenue. The respondent has recently declared its intention no longer to sell any of its confectionery products to the applicants or to any

persons, natural or corporate, who carry on 'a confectionery

wholesale business and who are owned or in a business sense

controlled by the applicant. The reason given by the respondent

2.

un a letter announcing its decision was:

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"This decision is taken in view of our policy not to supply products to entities which in our opinion are owned or controlled by producers of confectionery competitive with the products of Cadbury Schweppes Pty. Ltd."

The applicant is a company incorporated in Victoria. In November 1986 all its shares were acquired by Grand Central Investments Holding PLC, a company listed on the London Stock Exchange, subsidiaries of which grow cocoa and coconuts and process cocoa beans into cocoa butter, cocoa powder and cocoa liquor and vend other food products. One of these subsidiary companies, called Upali (Malaysia) SDN Berhad, manufacturers chocolate. The applicant has been buying small quantities of chocolate products from that latter company for re-sale in this country and presently proposes to buy from that company, which I will call "Upali", blocks of chocolate which the applicant is negotiating to sell to the proprietors of chain grocery stores, in which the blocks would be sold to consumers in packages