Delivery Hero, Glovo raided again as EU widens investigation

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -German online takeaway food company Delivery Hero and its Spanish business Glovo were raided for the second time in a year on Tuesday as EU antitrust regulators expanded their investigation into hiring practices and information sharing.

The European Commission said the ongoing raids in two EU countries were related to those made in July last year but did not name the firms, nor the countries.

"The scope of the investigation, initially including alleged market allocations, has now been extended to cover additional conduct in the form of alleged no-poach agreements and exchanges of commercially sensitive information," the EU competition watchdog said in a statement.

Agreements between companies not to hire each other's staff or restrictions preventing workers from providing their services on rival platforms - so-called "no poach" deals - have recently drawn regulatory scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic as these can be seen to restrict competition in labour markets.

Both Delivery Hero and Glovo confirmed the EU raids.

"We can confirm that the European Commission has conducted an inspection at our offices in Berlin and Barcelona," Delivery Hero said in a statement.

Glovo said the raids took place at its Barcelona offices.

Delivery Hero and Glovo had confirmed last year's raids too.

Delivery Hero struck a deal to secure majority control of Glovo in December 2021. Antitrust investigations can look into alleged competition breaches going back several years.

Competition watchdogs in Portugal, France, Spain, Croatia, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Greece, Lithuania, Romania and Germany have examined or acted against no poach deals.

Companies risk fines as much as 10% of their global turnover for breaching EU antitrust rules.

(Reporting by Foo Yun CheeAdditional reporting by Inti Landauro in Madrid and Matthias Inverardi in DusseldorfEditing by Mark Potter)