Brussels, 11/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 11 December, the Juncker Commission took its first decision to impose sanctions on a cartel, fining five envelope producers (the Swedish producer Bong, GPV and Hamelin of France, Germany's Mayer-Kuvert and Tompla of Spain) more than €19 million.
The Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, explained that this was the tenth such decision since the beginning of 2014 “and there are more in the pipeline to come”. She went on to stress that fighting cartels continued to be a priority of the Commission. It does not take much for a cartel to be picked up by the Commission's radar, she warned businesses.
On Thursday, the Commission explained that following an investigation launched on its own initiative in 2010, it found that between 2003 and 2008, these five companies had divided up clients and coordinated prices for the sales of standards/catalogue envelopes and special printed envelopes. The markets concerned are those of Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Through a series of multilateral and bilateral meetings orchestrated at the highest level, those participating in the cartel coordinated their responses to the calls for tenders launched by major European clients, agreed price increases and exchanged commercially sensitive information.
In line with its communication on leniency, the Commission granted reductions in the fines to the companies which cooperated with their investigation. In this way, Tompla was given a reduction of 50%, Hamelin 25% and GPV and Mayer-Kuvert 10% each. For the last of these, the Commission also took account of its lesser participation in the cartel. As all of the companies acknowledged their involvement and responsibility, the Commission reduced the fines by 10%, as all parties agreed to settle the case.
It is also worth noting that during the infringement period, the GPV group and Mayer-Kuvert were separate entities. Following the period of the cartel, the GPV group became insolvent and a number of its assets or entities, particularly those which took part in the cartel, were acquired by Mayer-Kuvert. The responsibility for the GPV group's participation in the cartel therefore belongs to GPV France SAS, a subsidiary created by Mayer-Kuvert to acquire the majority of the assets of the GPV group in the envelope production sector, and Heritage Envelopes Ltd, a direct participant in the infringement and former entity of the GPV group which was acquired by Mayer-Kuvert after the end of the illegal activity. These two entities were subsidiaries of Mayer-Kuvert at the time the application for leniency was made.
Tompla, Hamelin and Mayer-Kuvert are therefore each handed down a fine of nearly €5 million, GPV a fine of over €1.5 million and Bong just over €3 million. “On this case we have closed the envelope, sealed it and returned it to the sender with a clear message: don't cheat your customers, don't cartelise”, said Vestager. (EL)