The European Commission accused 12 cable makers of colluding to fix the prices of the underground and submarine power cables used in electricity grids. The commission did not name the companies it targeted, but Italy’s Prysmian, France’s Nexans, Denmark’s NKT Holding A/S, Switzerland’s ABB Ltd. and subsidiaries of General Cable Corp. of the U.S. confirmed they had received the statements.
The statements, a preliminary step in the EC’s proceeding, follow its January 2009 raiding of records at the facilities of Prysmian, Nexans, and other cable makers. The U.S., Canada and Australia are also currently looking into cartel activity related to the high-voltage cables.
In 2010, Japan’s Fair Trade Commission fined three other Tokyo-based electric cable companies a total of over 630 million yen ($6.9 million) after finding they had engaged in bid-rigging and formed a cartel in an effort to land high-voltage electric cable supply orders in deals with Tokyo Electric Power Co. and others.