Is it a me? Or is it Mario Monti? Maybe he's a just upset because we have the same name ..

The New York Times reported that the European Union Commission sent "formal warning" to Nintendo and some of Nintendo's European distributors over the way they distribute Nintendo products in Europe.

The European Commission has apparantly sent a "statement of objections" to the companies warning them that their way of dividing up the market for Nintendo game consoles and video games appeared to break EU antitrust rules.

"European families spend millions each year on video games and we want to make sure they are not being swindled," Monti said in a statement.

Swindled? Hey, here in the US .. that is almost considered a slanderous statement.

Nintendo distributors named are:

Linea GIG SpA (Italy?)

Itochu Corp (No idea)

Concentra LDA (Portugal)

Bergsala AB (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland)

Nortec SA (Greece)

CD-Contact Data, GmbH (Confused ..Germany or Belgium)

John Menzies, Plc. (No idea)

Not all of these companies were accurately listed on NOA's international distributor list, so I have no idea who some of these companies mentioned are.

Go read the entire story over at the NY Times, EU Probes Nintendo Distribution 'Cartel' You may have to register at the NY Times website to view the story, but this is free and relatively painless. We would especially appreciate what our European viewers think about this story.

One thing of note is that it was mentioned:

Companies have two months to reply after which the Commission can impose fines as high as 10 percent of a company's annual global turnover, although such a fine has in practice never been levied.

Now, isn't that convenient.