Swatch Allowed to Cut Only Movement Sales, Regulator Says
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Swatch Group AG, the biggest manufacturer of components for Swiss watches, won a partial reprieve from the country’s competition regulator on rules forcing it to sell mechanical watch mechanisms to third parties.
Swatch will be allowed in 2014 to reduce shipments of mechanical movements to other watch producers in Switzerland to 75 percent of the level in 2010, the antitrust overseer, known as Comco in French and Weko in German, said in a statement today. Comco said it will renegotiate a preliminary agreement with Swatch that would have ended sales of all movements and other watch parts by 2025, saying it now sees scaling back supplies of component sets as premature.