EU fines companies in fruit price-fixing cartel

The European Commission has found that banana importers Chiquita, Dole and Weichert participated in a cartel between 2000 and 2002 in violation of the EC Treaty's ban on cartels and restrictive practices (Article 81). The Commission has therefore imposed a total of €60m in fines on Dole and Weichert . The cartel members coordinated the setting of their quotation prices for bananas in eight EU Member States. At the time of the infringement, Weichert was trading mainly Del Monte branded bananas. Chiquita was not fined as it provided information to the Commission that enabled it to open its investigation. The fines on Dole and Weichert were reduced by 60% in view of the particular circumstances of the case, including the specific regulatory régime for the banana market that was in place at the time. An additional reduction of 10% was accorded to Weichert as it did not participate in a part of the cartel. Del Monte is held jointly and severally liable for the payment of the fine imposed on Weichert as it controlled Weichert at the time of the infringement. The cartel affected Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Sweden, where the combined retail value of bananas sold in 2002 amounted to around €2.5 billion.

European Commission: Press Release: IP/08/1509 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1509&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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