The European Commission informed Alcogroup S.A. and its subsidiary Alcodis S.A. (‘Alcogroup’), as well as Lantmännen ek för and its subsidiary Lantmännen Agroetanol AB (‘Agroetanol’) on Thursday 7 July of its preliminary conclusion that these companies, together with the company Abengoa S.A. (‘Abengoa’), which entered into a transaction in December 2021, have infringed EU rules on anti-competitive practices.
The Commission considers that these companies have colluded with the aim of influencing the wholesale price formation mechanism for ethanol in Europe.
Ethanol is an alcohol made from biomass which, when added to petrol, can be used as a biofuel for motor vehicles. The port of Rotterdam and the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp barge market are the most important trading locations for ethanol in Europe.
Alcogroup, Agroetanol and Abengoa produce ethanol. S&P Global Platts (Platts), a price reporting agency, takes into account the trading activity in this area to determine its ethanol benchmarks, which are used as reference prices in the industry.
The Commission found that Alcogroup, Agroetanol together with Abengoa coordinated their trading conduct in the last price negotiation phase and agreed to limit the volumes of ethanol in the Rotterdam area so that they would not be sold during the last price negotiation phase, in accordance with their joint plan to artificially increase the level of the ethanol indices set by Platts, to maintain them and/or to prevent them from falling. The companies hoped to obtain higher prices for their ethanol sales under the ethanol supply contracts with their customers referenced to those benchmarks.
The Commission has made a preliminary finding that traders from Alcogroup and Agroetanol as well as from Abengoa have had illegal contacts by means of instant messaging or e-mail.
For more information: https://aeur.eu/f/2j1 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)