The French competition authority, the Autorité de la concurrence, or FCA, on Wednesday fined a cartel between four distributors of commodity chemicals - Brenntag, Caldic Est, Univar and Solvadis - for alleged price fixing between 1998 and 2005.
According to the regulator, the anticompetitive agreement between these distributors restricted competition by allocating customers among the parties and coordinating prices.
These practices were observed in the Bourgogne and Rhône-Alpes regions, and in the North and the West of France. The agency considered that these practices were part of a global and single strategy.
The regulator added that many undertakings on the downstream side of the market, especially small and medium enterprises, were harmed by these practices, and the majority of French industrial areas were affected, with the exception of the Ile-de-France and South-West regions.
Representatives of Solvadis, Brenntag, Univar and Caldic met regularly in hotels, restaurants or communicated on the phone to allocate customers and coordinate prices.
The cartel's implementation was closely monitored to make sure that no participant deviated from its rules. Checks could be performed with customers and reminders issued on the cartel's rules.
According to the agency, Brenntag was the pivot of the cartel, it started it in three regions and carried out its monitoring. Luxembourg-owned Solvadis, the first to report the existence of the cartel to the agency, had applied for leniency and was granted immunity from penalty. It would have been liable to a fine of 13 million euros otherwise. GEA Group (GEAGF.PK,GEAGY.PK), which did not apply for leniency, was fined 9.4 million euros as the parent company of Solvadis at the time the offence was committed.
After Solvadis applied for leniency, Brenntag AG's (BNTGF.PK) French unit and U.S.-based Univar groups successively applied for leniency. Brenntag and Univar, the second and third applicants for leniency, had their penalties reduced by 25 percent and 20 percent, respectively.
Brenntag was fined 47.8 million euros and Univar 15.18 million euros. A fine of 1.34 million euros was imposed on Dutch-owned Caldic Est.
Brenntag responded that it ''does not agree with the legal qualification of the facts and the calculation of the fine of the FCA and will consider an appeal.''
Brenntag France applied for leniency in 2006 and actively contributed to the investigation, it said, adding that it provided all information and proof working closely with the FCA.
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