Spain Court Says Studios Fixed Prices

Units of Hollywood’s major studios were fined 2.4 million euros ($3.1 million) each by Spain’s competition court after a three-year inquiry into allegations of price fixing and other unfair trade practices.

The Spanish units of Walt Disney Co., Sony Pictures Entertainment, News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, United International Pictures and Time Warner Inc. worked together to limit competition in booking films at movie houses, the Madrid-based antitrust authority said in a decision made public Friday.

London-based United International Pictures is a distributor owned by Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures and by General Electric Co.’s Universal Pictures.

The fined companies, which dominate the Spanish film market, “agreed to carry out uniform sales policies, dividing up among themselves a substantial part of the Spanish film distribution market,” the court wrote.

The competition court’s decision resolves a three-year investigation into allegations of market abuse brought by a group representing cinema owners.

The probe stemmed partly from claims that U.S. distributors required local theaters to rent a series of films rather than be allowed to select individual films.

Time Warner’s Spanish film distributor, Warner Sogefilms, will appeal the decision to a higher court, said Warner Bros. Entertainment spokeswoman Susan Fleishman. Warner Sogefilms is a venture with Sogecable, Spain’s biggest pay TV company.

Representatives of the other studios did not comment.