The European Commission has fined Sanrio Co. Ltd, owner of the Hello Kitty toy brand, €6.2 million ($7 million) for barring traders from selling licensed merchandise outside their home markets.

The company restricted cross-border online sales of toys, mugs, bags and other products featuring the popular cartoon cat – a violation of the EU's competition rules, the Commission said.

"Today's decision confirms that traders who sell licensed products cannot be prevented from selling products in a different country. This leads to less choice and potentially higher prices for consumers and is against EU antitrust rules," Margrethe Vestager, the EU's antitrust chief, said in a statement. "Consumers, whether they are buying a Hello Kitty mug or a Chococat toy, can now take full advantage of one of the main benefits of the single market: the ability to shop around Europe for the best deals."

The commission found Sanrio's illegal practices were in force for 11 years, until last December.

Sanrio is a Japanese company that designs, licenses, produces and sells products featuring Hello Kitty, an anthropomorphic cat, and other popular characters such as My Melody, Little Twin Stars, Keroppi and Chococat. Through its subsidiary Mister Men Ltd, Sanrio also holds the intellectual property rights to the 'Mr. Men' and 'Little Miss' series of animated characters.

Following an investigation into Sanrio launched in 2017, the Commission found that the company's licensing agreements broke EU competition rules.

These included direct measures restricting out-of-territory sales by licensees, such as clauses explicitly prohibiting such sales, obligations to refer orders for out-of-territory sales to Sanrio, and limitations to the languages used on the merchandising products. Sanrio also used other measures to ensure compliance with the ban on out-of-territory sales such as audits and refusing to renew contacts with licensees who failed to respect the restrictions.

As Sanrio cooperated with the Commission in its investigation, the EU antitrust body reduced the fine by 40%, to €6.2 million ($7 million).

Sanrio is not the only company the EU targeted in its investigation of cross-border licensing. In March, the Commission fined Nike €12.5 million ($14.2 million) for imposing illegal restrictions on licence holders that wanted to sell outside their home country. It is also investigating Universal Studios. The probes came as the antitrust division increased scrutiny of e-commerce as part of its efforts to foster a "digital single market".

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