Europe’s General Court reduces cartel penalties

On July 13 the General Court of the European Union reduced the fines imposed on a number of companies involved in a synthetic rubber price fixing cartel. The 13 companies participating in the butadiene rubber and emulsion styrene butadiene rubber (substances primarily used in tyre production) cartel between 1996 and 2002 were given fines totalling more than 519 million euros by the European Commission in November 2006. The companies appealed this decision; all, excepting Shell group companies, succeeded in gaining an annulment or reduction in their fines from Europe’s second highest court.

The largest individual fine handed out by the European Commission in 2006 was to Eni SpA and Polimeri Europa SpA, who was ordered to pay 272.25 million euros. In its decision, the General Court of the European Union recalled that the European Commission increased the Italian firm’s basic fine by 50 per cent as it had participated in two previous cartels. This fine has now been reduced to 181.5 million euros as the General Court believes the European Commission “did not produce enough detailed and specific evidence to be able to show that those companies had repeated an infringement.”

Czech Republic based Unipetrol (along with its subsidiary Kaučuk) and Poland’s Trade-Stomil were originally respectively fined 17.5 million euros and 3.8 million euros by the European Comission. However the General Court of the European Union ruled that “the evidence admitted by the Commission is not sufficient for a finding that those companies participated in unlawful agreements.” It has thus annulled both companies’ fines.

All arguments presented by the Netherlands based Shell group of companies were rejected by the court, who decided to maintain the 160.68 million euro fine imposed by the European Commission.