Brussels, 20/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - In response to an investigation launched by the European Commission into a possible violation of EC Treaty competition rules, Alrosa and De Beers have offered commitments to the Commission regarding their notified rough diamonds Trade Agreement, which the Commission has made public. The Commission initiated an investigation triggered by the notification of a Trade Agreement in March 2002 between De Beers and Alrosa, by which De Beers agreed to purchase annually the equivalent of $800 million in rough diamonds from Alrosa for a period of 5 years, seen as an abuse of power by De Beers (see Europe of 17 January 2003). The commitments offered foresee that quantities of diamonds to be purchased by De Beers, the largest supplier of rough diamonds in the world, from the Russian state-owned company Alrosa, the second largest diamond producer, would be phased down over a 6 year period as set out below and would remain at a maximum equivalent of $275 million/year after that period: Pending the investigation of the Commission, the parties suspended the implementation of the Trade Agreement and established an interim framework within which they continued to trade on an ad hoc basis. Alrosa's and De Beers' commitments will be available on the Commission's competition website (and will subsequently be published in the EU Official Journal so that interested parties can give their views to the Commission within one month from the date of publication). If their robustness is confirmed, the commitments will be accepted by the Commission and become binding on these companies through a so-called 'Commitment Decision'. If companies subsequently breach a 'Commitment Decision', a fine may be imposed.
Competition Commissioner spokesman Jonathan Todd said that the anti-trust investigations into De Beers' distribution networks were continuing (see Europe of 21 November 2003).