The European Commission has fined the Japanese Sanrio Company, Ltd. €6.2 million for banning traders from selling licensed merchandise to other countries within the EEA.

This restriction concerned products featuring Hello Kitty or other characters owned by Sanrio, following the Commission's opening of an antitrust investigation in June 2017 into certain licensing and distribution practices of Sanrio to assess whether it illegally restricted traders from selling licensed merchandise cross-border...