€12 million fine for German cartel

Germany's competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, has imposed fines totalling €12 million on two manufacturers of concrete pipes after exposing their role in a price fixing cartel.

The northern German companies, Berding Beton and Betonwerk Bieren, are said to have shared out the regional market for concrete pipes in their mutual distribution areas of Lower-Saxony, Bremen and North Rhine-Westphalia and collaborated on prices, quotas and the allocation of individual orders since at least 2006.

The Bundeskartellamt said it was also conducting investigations against 13 other manufacturers of concrete pipes on suspicion of price fixing.

The cartel agreement between Berding Beton and Betonwerk Bieren was exposed in February 2010, when the Bundeskartellamt raided company offices. The authority said companies had cooperated with the investigation, which led to a reduction in their fines in line with the authority's leniency programme.

Bundeskartellamt president Andreas Mundt said, "For many years the companies have systematically hindered competition in the market, thereby causing considerable damage. To implement the cartel agreement the companies have undertaken a huge organisational effort - for example, there is proof that more than 100 personal meetings took place between employees of the two companies."