Finnish cartel probe

Finland's Competition Authority (FCA) has closed its investigation into anticompetitive behaviour in the bituminous roofing market without proposing any sanctions.

The FCA began its investigations in March 2002, and looked specifically at information exchanges among competitors in the industry.

In March 2006 it released a preliminary finding that prohibited exchanges of information had taken place between 1996 and 2002.

Despite these early findings, the FCA has decided not to propose any fines or other court action. It says the legal position regarding information exchanges may have been unclear, and further justifies its decision by saying the companies involved had changed information handling practices before the investigation started.

The companies involved have maintained throughout that the information they exchanged was of a basic nature, and that this was done solely to establish the size of the market.