GlaxoSmithKline put a clause in contracts with Spanish wholesalers requiring they did not export medicines to other Member States.

National health authorities fix prices for medicines at different levels, and it wished to prevent wholesalers shipping cheap drugs from Spain to the UK.

The General Court held that the prevention of parallel trade was not enough to amount to a restriction of competition.

It said that the objective of article 101 is to stop ‘reducing the welfare of the final consumer of the products in question.'

Consequently, for a finding that an agreement has an anti-competitive object, it is not necessary that final consumers be deprived of the advantages of effective competition in terms of supply or price.