Germany's
Federal Cartel Office has reported a marked increase in price-fixing activities
across many industries. The competition watchdog has levied a volume of fines
on firms not seen in years.
The Federal
Cartel Office of Germany last year slapped fines of some 303 million euros
($399.5 million) on companies accused of price-fixing activities. According to
the newspaper Berliner Zeitung, this is the biggest sum of fines levied by the
national competition watchdog since 2008.
The
anti-trust authorities said price-rigging had been on the rise for a long time
and affected more and more sectors of the German economy.
The biggest
fine in 2012 was slapped on a number of companies involved in an ongoing rail
cartel investigation, including industrial giant ThyssenKrupp. The fines of
altogether 124.5 million euros related to a probe into whether manufacturers
made cartel agreements on the supply of rail to Germany's Deutsche Bahn
operator to the detriment of customers and the railway company itself.
Sweet
secrets?
"The
members of the cartel observed quotas, divided up orders among themselves and
fixed prices to manipulate the bidding," Cartel Office President Andreas
Mundt said in a statement.
Four more
companies were fined last year for illegally fixing prices in the German power
transformer market. Among others, the case involved German and Swiss
engineering firms Siemens and ABB.
In a
smaller case, German sweets producer Haribo - best known for its gummy bears -
was fined for the banned swapping of sales information with rival producers.
Staff of the company had been found to have met regularly with officials from
three other sweet producers to informally exchange details on talks with
retailers on discounts.
hg/kms (dpa, AFP)
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