Brussels, 05/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has slapped a fine for a total of 135.22 million euro on fivve companies having participated in a cartel in the citric acid sector: Switzerland's Hoffman-La Roche AG and Jungbunzlauer (JBL), the Americans Archer Daniels Midland Co (ADM) and Hermann & Reimer (H&R) and the Dutch firm Cerestar Bioproducts, accused of price-fixing and haring the citric acid market. Commissioner Monti strongly condemned this conduct that "as in the vitamins case (…) shows a disregard for their customers and, ultimately, the consumers which paid more for the products concerned than if the companies had engaged in healthy price competition". Mr. Monti stressed that some of these companies had already recently been sanctioned for similar conduct: ADM and Jungbunzlauer (sodium gluconate) and Roche (vitamins: see EUROPE of 3 October, p.13 and 22 November, p.7), demonstrating "how widespread these secret practices are".
The investigation began in 1997, the Commission having learnt that the American authorities were preparing to condemn the five companies in question for having participated in a cartel at international level. They had then discovered that the companies had agreed, between 1991 and 1995, to fix prices and share out the markets for this additive, much used for drinks and food products. Detergent manufacturers have recently turned to it as substitute for phosphates, dangerous for the environment, likewise the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry for the manufacture of dissolving tablets and beauty products. Between 1991 and 1995, this market had an annual value of some 320 million euro in the EEA. The five companies collaborated, during this period (from 1992 for Carestar) so as to eliminate their rivals by allocating specific sales quotas for each member, setting "target" and "floor" prices by exchange precise information on their clients and abolishing refunds or limiting them to 3% at most for their large clients. A genuine commercial strategy had been put in place so that the members of the alliance respected the terms of the agreement. The Commission condemned this "very serious" infringement to European rules of competition. Thus, Roche and ADM receive the largest fines (63.5 million and 39.69 million, respectively) for having led the cartel, followed byJBL (17.64 million euro) Haarmann & Reimer (14.22 million euro) and Cerestar (17,000 euro). The Commission stresses having reduced the amount of these fines, all companies having co-operated, in one way or another (foremost Cerestar), in the investigation.
Roche states its will henceforth to respect the laws in force
In a press release, Roche recognises that there had indeed been "unlawful practices" on its part. It states that henceforth it was going to do all it could to have its managers respect the laws in force, at national and international level, notably through a special training programme and the setting up of a monitoring service responsible for the respect of existing laws.