Bridgestone, Conti & Others Fined for Hose Cartel Participation

Bridgestone, Continental, Trelleborg and at least two other companies have been fined a combined total of 131.51 million euros by the European Commission for their role in the price fixing and rigging bids for rubber marine hose. The Commission’s decision follows the action of overseas authorities, such the US Justice Department, that has seen charges laid against a number of executives from British, French, Italian and Japanese firms.

The fines were announced on January 28 and Bridgestone received the largest penalty, 58.5 million euros. The size of Bridgestone’s fine, which was increased by 30 per cent, reflects its leading role in the cartel, which operated for more than two decades. Trelleborg’s French subsidiary has been handed a 24.5 million euro fine, while Continental, via its UK-based Dunlop Oil & Marine unit (a member of the ContiTech Group), has been fined 18 million euros.

“For 20 years, this cartel added to the prices consumers paid for their oil deliveries,” said EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement. “I will not tolerate illegal cartels and will continue to impose heavy fines on those companies found guilty of this kind of serious malpractice.” The cartel operated from 1986 to 2007, with employees from Bridgestone, Yokohama, Dunlop Oil & Marine, Trelleborg along with Italian firms Parker ITR and Manuli meeting regularly to fix prices and exchange sensitive market information – a market that, in Europe alone, was worth 32 million euros per annum. These meetings took place in several locations in Europe, East Asia and the US.

Commenting on the decision, Trelleborg Group president and CEO Peter Nilsson said, “it is good that we now have received a decision on this issue. Clearly, competition violations are completely unacceptable, and we have in an open way assisted the authorities with their investigations. We have also taken significant internal actions to minimise the risk that this could happen again.”

Bridgestone Corporation notes that it has received a notice of decision from the European Commission regarding the decision, and in a statement the company said it “will take appropriate actions after examining the full text of the decision, which will be sent to us later.” Bridgestone added that it will separately announce the fine’s impact upon its financial results.

Despite its participation in the cartel, Yokohama Rubber was not included in this round of European Commission fines due to its cooperation with investigators. A statement released by the company says that “Yokohama Rubber has traditionally emphasised the importance of complying with antitrust laws and made efforts to eliminate its involvement in bid-rigging or cartel by establishing a Corporate Compliance Committee and other programs within the company.” It notes that during the course of an internal investigation in autumn 2006 the company’s involvement was uncovered, prompting it to apply to the European Commission for immunity. Yokohama Rubber concludes by stating: “We heartily apologise to our customers, shareholders and other stakeholders for their concern and inconvenience regarding this matter.”