The EC has imposed fines totally approximately $100 million on six European and Japanese power transformer producers for dividing markets from 1999 through 2003. The Commission found that the Japanese firms agreed not to sell transformers in Europe in exchange for the European firms agreement not to sell in Japan.
Category Archives: Cartel Activity
Insurance Fee Setting Protected by Filed Rate Doctrine
October 15, 2009 – 12:27 pm
In In Re: New Jersey Title Insurance Litigation, New Jersey District Court Judge Garrett E. Brown Jr. has tossed an antitrust action that accused more than a dozen major title insurers of conspiring with a New Jersey rating bureau to fix prices. In urging dismissal the defendants maintained that the plaintiffs’ claims were barred by […]
Airline Commission Conspiracy Case Dismissed
October 15, 2009 – 12:25 pm
Update March 2010: The travel agents have petitioned for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. In In re: Travel Agent Commission Antitrust Litigation, 6th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a dismissal of a suit for failure to state a claim under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, brought by travel agents accusing major airlines […]
EU High Court Rejects Appeal of Fines Imposed on Banking Cartel
October 15, 2009 – 12:09 pm
In Erste Bank et al. v. Commission of the European Communities, Europe’s highest court has rejected an appeal from four Austrian banks that sought a reduction of €160 million ($155 million) in fines that were imposed on them by European regulators over antitrust violations. The fines stemmed from an Austrian political party’s complaint lodged against […]
CFI Upholds Fines Against Chemical Cartel
October 1, 2009 – 2:09 pm
The European Court of First Instance has upheld European Commision’s imposition of antitrust fines against Dutch chemical group Akzo Nobel and French oil group Elf Aquitaine for illegally sharing markets and fixing prices. The CFI, however, reduced the fine imposed Hoechst, a German chemical firm, by 10 percent to €66.63m.
Interest Rate Fixing Ruling Upheld
September 30, 2009 – 8:52 am
The European Court of Justice has upheld a multi-million-euro fine imposed by the European Commission on Austrian banks (the so-called “Lombard Club”) for fixing interest rates.
Fines Imposed in Concrete Bar Cartel
September 30, 2009 – 8:50 am
The European Commission has imposed fines exceeding over €83m on eight companies for cartelizing the concrete reinforcing bar sector in Italy in violation of Article 65 (1) of the ECSC Treaty.
ECJ Rules that Parent Can Be Liable for Anticompetitive Conduct of Subsidiary
September 10, 2009 – 9:12 am
The European Court of Justice dismissed Akzo Nobel‘s appeal of a 2007 Court of First Instance judgment affirming a fine for cartel activities regarding choline chloride, a feed additive. The fine included the participating subsidiaries as well as the parent company on a theory of joint and several liability. The decision amounts to high court confirmation of the […]
Coastal Shipping Cartel Civil Case Dismissed Without Prejudice
August 23, 2009 – 11:10 am
Update August 2009: Judge Thomas Zilly, Western District of Washington, dismissed a private civil action alleging a conspiracy to increase prices in Pacific shipping routes. The court held that the plaintiffs allegations of parallel price increases in a market with rising fuel costs and guilty pleas by executives relating to shipping in another geographic area […]
Fourth Circuit Affirms that Maryland Liquor Regulation is Anticompetitive
August 20, 2009 – 4:07 pm
In TFWS Inc. v. Peter Franchot et al., 4th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse its earlier decision that Maryland’s liquor and wine regulations involving 1) post-and-hold pricing system, which governs how and when liquor wholesalers may charge their prices; and 2) a volume discount ban, which prevents wholesalers from offering lower prices to […]