Brussels, 15/07/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 15 July, the European Commission handed down fines for a total of €49 million to the company Express Interfracht (EXIF), which is part of the Austrian railway incumbent Österreichische Bundesbahnen (ÖBB), and the company Schenker, which belongs to the German railway incumbent, Deutsche Bahn.
EXIF and Schenker must pay fines of €17.3 and €31.7 million respectively for having taken part in a cartel, between July 2004 and June 2012, in the market for cargo block-train services, a system of transporting goods by rail from one point to another without the convoy being separated or the wagons being stored on the way. They fixed prices and allocated customers for nearly eight years on the 'Balkan train' (between Western Europe and central and south-eastern Europe) and 'Sop train' (Central Europe and Romania) services.
As well as dividing up customers between themselves, the companies also exchanged confidential information regarding specific customer requests and directly coordinated prices by providing each other with cover bids in respect of customers protected under their customer allocation scheme. Lastly, they coordinated sales prices offered to downstream customers.
The Swiss group Kühne+Nagel, which is one of the largest transport and logistics companies in Europe, also took part in the cartel but was not fined, as it was granted immunity for having revealed its existence. Express Interfracht and Schenker received reductions of their fines as they cooperated in the investigation and agreed to settle the case with the Commission. (Elodie Lamer)