The European Commission has fined AB InBev, the world's largest brewer, more than €200 million ($225 million) for breaching antitrust rules.

The commission found that that AB InBev, which owns global beer brands such as Budweiser, has abused its dominant position in the Belgian beer market for eight years by preventing its beer, which is sold at lower prices in the Netherlands, from being resold in Belgium.

The sizeable fine was imposed on the company for abusing its dominant position from February 2009 to October 2017.

"Consumers in Belgium have been paying more for their favourite beer because of AB InBev's deliberate strategy to restrict cross-border sales between the Netherlands and Belgium," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust czar, said in a statement. "Attempts by dominant companies to carve up the Single Market to maintain high prices are illegal. Therefore, we have fined AB InBev €200 million for breaching our antitrust rules."

Following an antitrust inquiry into the Belgian beer market launched in 2016, the commission found that AB InBev had tried to restrict sales of its Jupiler brand – its most popular in the Belgian market. It changed the labelling of its products, which were being sold in the Netherlands at lower prices, to make it difficult for them to be sold on the Belgian market. One way it accomplished this was by removing labelling in French. French-language labelling is compulsory in Belgium, where the main languages are French and Dutch.

The company also limited the volume of beer sold to the Netherlands to reduce the chance of it being resold on the Belgian market, and withheld supplies of its Jupiler brand from one retailer until it stopped reselling the cheaper product from the Netherlands. It also offered a retailer in the Netherlands a consumer promotion on condition that it did not offer the same promotion on beer sold in Belgium.