Brussels, 09/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday, the European Commission decided to impose a fine of 66.34 million EUR on three European companies for having made an agreement about choline chloride (vitamin B4) prices between 1992 and 1998. Determined to make a good showing at her first outing before the Brussels press as Competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes started by sending out a clear message to all those who have doubts about her impartiality and "seemed to suggest that no firm action against companies which break the rules of competition" would be forthcoming. Very pleased with the two important decisions of the day (on GDP- see other article), Ms Kroes saw this as a sign of her independence from the business world and "the proof that I am capable of making the necessary decisions when I have to". At the end of a relatively robust discussion, during which she said that she was not quite the "pussycat" towards the business world various people may have portrayed her as, she said: "you will have to get used to my personality".
At the end of this investigation, which was opened in 1999 further to whistleblowing, the Commission concluded that the companies Akzo Nobel (Netherlands), BASF (Germany), UCB (Belgium), Bioproducts (United States), DuCoa (United States) and Chinook (Canada) were guilty. These companies, which controlled nearly 80% of the world choline chloride market in 1997 (estimated at around 180 million EUR), agreed in the early 1990s to fix prices and share the market for this vitamin, which is mainly used as a food additive to boost the growth of poultry and pigs, reduce their mortality rates and improve the quality of their meat.
Between 1992 and April 1994, the secret agreement allowed all of the above chemicals companies to push up world prices for choline chloride and to divide up the market between themselves, with the American companies withdrawing from the European markets and vice versa. From 1994 to October 1998, only the European companies continued to pursue an agreement between themselves on price increases on the national markets of the European Economic Area (EEA), on their respective market shares, and on how the individual clients were divided up.
US companies that stopped taking part in the cartel in April 1994 will not be fined. Withdrawing from the cartel five years before the Commission probe began, they are not subject to the rules in force at the time imposing financial penalties. Taking into account the period of the infringement, their cooperation in the investigation and the former BASF, which had already been found guilty of similar irregularities, the Commission fines are a follows: 10.38 million for UCB, 20.99 million for Akzo Nobel and 34.97 for BASF. The latter had already received a 296 million fine in 2001 when the Commission imposed record fines of 855 million on eight pharmaceutical companies involved in a vitamin cartel.
In this kind of case, which Neelie Kroes is making a priority in her mandate, she warned that the Commission would not tolerate the fact that the advantages in the EU single market are refused to customers due to agreements and other anti-competitive practices. She insisted that her personal policy would be zero tolerance of those operating cartels to the disadvantage of consumers.