Brussels, 09/08/2000 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday the spokesperson service confirmed that the European Commission addressed, at the end of July, a statement of objections to 17 companies (including some belonging to the same group) among which is the German company Zanders Feinpapoere AG. The spokesperson refused to make any comment, explaining that it was a case of maintaining the presumption of innocence.
This first stage in the process, which can lead to heavy fines for companies that are condemned guilty of a violating competition regulations, is the end of a long investigation carried out by the European Commission since the autumn of 1996 on the functioning of the self-copying paper market. After the inspection of several companies in 1997, the Commission managed to gather the evidence of the existence of an international level price fixing cartel. Companies present in different Member States are involved in this cartel.