Brussels, 03/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - Three manufacturers, Philips, Samsung and Infineon, have been fined a little over €138 million for a cartel between 2003 and 2005 on the smart chip markets in the European Economic Area, announced the European Commission on Wednesday 3 September. Smart card chips are used in mobile telephone SIM cards, bank cards, identity cards and passports, pay TV cards, and various other applications.
Despite its involvement in the cartel, Renesas (at the time a joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi) has been granted immunity for revealing the cartel's existence.
After three years of investigation and an unsuccessful attempt to reach an arrangement, the Commission has decided to fine Infineon (of Germany) over €82 million, Philips (of the Netherlands) more than €20 million and Samsung (of South Korea) more than €35 million. Samsung's fine was reduced from over €51 million because it cooperated with the investigation, leading to a 30% reduction in its fine.
Philips and Infineon are planning to appeal against the decision.
The Commission's investigation found that the companies colluded through a network of bilateral contacts between September 2003 and September 2005 in order to determine their responses to customers' requests to lower prices. They discussed and exchanged sensitive commercial information on pricing, customers, contract negotiations, production capacity or capacity utilisation and their future market conduct.
The Commission had initially explored the possibility of settling this case with some of the companies involved, which would have led to reduced fines, but after months of negotiations, the Commission decided to put an end to talks because of clear lack of progress. EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said: “In this digital era smart card chips are used by almost everybody, whether in their mobile phones, bank cards or passports. It is crucial that the companies producing them focus their efforts on how to outperform their competitors by innovating and providing the best products at the most attractive prices.” (EL)