Nintendo of Europe believe that Topps Co may be involved in unfair practices and are investigating the case. The full article from Reuters can be found below.

BRUSSELS, June 19 (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Thursday it was investigating suspected anti-competitive practices at Topps Co TOPP.O , the distributor of cards and stickers featuring Pokemon cartoon characters.

"We came to the preliminary conclusion that Topps had elaborated a very far-reaching strategy designed to prevent imports of those products from countries where the prices are low into countries where the prices are higher," said Commission spokeswoman Amelia Torres.

Torres said the Commission had sent a statement of objections to five Topps companies, including its U.S. and European head offices and three other European subsidiaries.

"Collecting such cards and stickers is a favourite pastime with young children and we are determined to make sure that their parents do not pay excessive prices and do benefit from parallel imports," Torres said.

"We are talking about considerable pocket money."

The firm charged two and a half times more in Finland than in Portugal for Pokemon cards in 2000, the year the Commission investigation is focusing on, she said.

Pokemon, whose trademark is owned by Japan's Nintendo Co. 7974.OS , are characters from a popular series of video games.

"We are talking about a very important market. You would probably not believe it but we have estimated this market (in the year 2000) at 600 million euros ($698 million)," Torres said.