Press Release: Competition: Commission fines members of lifts and escalators cartels over EUR 990 million

The European Commission has fined the Otis, KONE, Schindler and ThyssenKrupp groups €992 million for operating cartels for the installation and maintenance of lifts and escalators in Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, in clear violation of EC Treaty rules that outlaw restrictive business practices (Article 81). The decision names 17 subsidiaries of the above groups, together with Mitsubishi Elevator Europe B.V. which participated in the Dutch cartel. Lifts and escalators play a major role in modern urban life - Otis alone estimates that the equivalent of the entire world's population travel on their lifts, escalators and moving walkways every 9 days. Between at least 1995 and 2004, these companies rigged bids for procurement contracts, fixed prices and allocated projects to each other, shared markets and exchanged commercially important and confidential information. The effects of this cartel may continue for twenty to fifty years as maintenance is often done by the companies that installed the equipment in the first place; by cartelising the installation, the companies distorted the markets for years to come. KONE subsidiaries received full immunity from fines under the Commission’s leniency programme in respect of the cartels in Belgium and Luxembourg, as they were first to provide information about these cartels. Similarly, Otis Netherlands received full immunity in respect of the Netherlands cartel. The fines imposed on the ThyssenKrupp companies were increased by 50%, as it is a repeat offender. These are the largest ever fines imposed by the Commission for cartel violations.

European Commission: DG Communication: MEMO/07/70 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/07/70&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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