Coca-Cola has reached an antitrust settlement with the European Commission that will change the way it sells its products across most of the EU.

The agreement means Coca-Cola will no longer be able to do special deals with its customers that stop them from buying soft drinks from another supplier.

It also prevents the drinks company from using stronger brands such as Fanta or Coke to help sell less popular products in the Coca-Cola portfolio, such as Sprite or Vanilla Coke.

The new rules will not, however, apply in the Republic, because Coca-Cola's Irish market share is not deemed to be sufficiently high.

"The commitment decision concerning the commercial practices of the Coca-Cola system in the European Economic Area does not apply to Ireland because of the size of the share held by our nearest competitor," said a Coca-Cola spokeswoman in Dublin yesterday.

The company's undertaking with the Commission only applies where Coca-Cola has more than 40 per cent of a country's total sales of soft drinks, and twice the share of the nearest competitor.

The Coca-Cola spokeswoman described the Republic's soft drinks market as "highly competitive", saying it would be standard practice for firms to make special arrangements with some customers.

She also pointed out that Coca-Cola in the Republic already allows its customers to use part of Coca-Cola- branded fridges to store brands from other companies.

Under the new rules agreed with the Commission, Coca-Cola will have to extend this practice across the EU.

It previously prevented retailers in some circumstances from storing the products of other companies in its fridges.

Coca-Cola has committed to act according to the new arrangements until 2010. If it breaches them, it could face a fine of 10 per cent of global turnover.

Yesterday's settlement comes at the end of six years of negotiation between the two parties.

The Commission launched the anti-trust investigation in 1999 following a complaint from PepsiCo.