Brussels, 27/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has imposed heavy fines on a long-running cartel on the market for plasterboard ("gyproc" in Belgium and "placoplâtre" in France). The fine, on the four members of the cartel (BPC, Knauf, Lafarge SA and Gyproc Benelux) amounts to a total of EUR 478 million. This is the second highest fine ever imposed by the Commission after the "vitamin cartel case" in December 2001 (EUR 855.23 million). The fine on Lafarge is also the third largest imposed on a single company in any case. This particularly high amount reflects the size of the market (over 1.2 billion turnover in 1997, the last full year of infringement), the impact of the agreement on the consumer (the product is largely used in construction, also by private individuals), its duration (over six and a half years) and the repeated behaviour of two of the companies (Lafarge and BPB).
The investigation had begun in 1998 with unannounced inspections on the premises of the companies concerned. Information gathered allowed the Commission to establish that, between 1992 and 1998, British BPB PLC, German Gebrüder Knauf Westdeutsche Gipswerke KG and French Société Lafarge SA had formed a cartel in plasterboard in the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Benelux countries, joined by Belgian Gyproc Benelux SA/NV in 1996. The arrangement was all the more harmful to consumers as these companies together produced nearly all plasterboard in the countries concerned. The origin of the cartel was a meeting early 1992, during which BPB and Knauf representatives decided to put an end to the price war and expressed a common desire to reduce competition on the German, French, British, Belgian, Dutch and Luxembourg markets. A secret system of information exchange had therefore been set in place to monitor market developments and to prevent over-fierce competition. Lafarge, and then Gyproc, signed up to the system, in mid 1992 and June 1996 respectively. The Commission was able to acquire evidence that, on the British market, BPB, Knauf and Lafarge repeatedly, through high level contacts, exchanged information on their sales volumes so as to provide mutual reassurance that the price war had ended. Top representatives met in 1996 in order to avoid a new price war in Germany in the mid nineties, a meeting followed by two others in 1997 and 1998 with a view to sharing out or at least stabilising market shares in Germany. These meetings gave rise to repeated concerted action between the four companies on application of price rises on the German market between 1996 and 1998. In April 2001, the Commission sent a letter of objection to the companies followed, today, by imposition of a fine of EUR 249.6 million on Lafarge, the leading cement company worldwide which is far larger than the other companies. Lower fines were imposed on BPB (EUR 138.6 million), Knauf (EUR 85.8 million) and Gyproc Benelux (EUR 4.32 million). Lafarge and BPB were more heavily fined as they have repeatedly given each other advance warning of price increases (Lafarge had already been sanctioned in 1994 for a cement cartel and BPB, also in 1994, for a cartonboard cartel). No factor was able to attenuate the amount of the fine imposed on Knauf and Lafarge which, unlike BPB and Gyproc, did not cooperate in the investigation. The companies involved have three months in which to pay the fine, to the Community budget.