Standards body faces scrutiny over influence of HFC ‘cartel’

Date: 30/05/02

By Laurence Frost

CEN, the European committee for standardisation, is facing a competition probe into claims that it has been hijacked by an industry 'cartel' determined to exclude rivals from their markets.

Calor Gas is one of four complainants to raise the issue with the European Commission, claiming that CEN has been 'used' by a powerful group dominating one of its technical committees.

The allegations by UK firm Calor, German equipment manufacturer Steibel Eltron, Italy's De'Longhi and a British research group are targeted at firms making and using HFC gases as coolants for refrigeration.

Calor, which makes alternative hydrocarbon coolants, claims the 'cartel' is 'blatantly rewriting' standards on refrigeration and air-conditioning equipment to 'write another industry's products out of the standards'.

Amelia Torres, spokeswoman for Competition Commissioner Mario Monti, said the Commission would examine the claims. 'We will have to look into the allegations and determine whether they are well-founded,' she said.

HFCs are global-warming gases between 1,000 and 12,000 times more destructive than carbon dioxide.

The contested CEN standard, due to be approved next week, would set tough new safety limits on the quantity of hydrocarbon coolants allowed in a single appliance. Calor says this would effectively ban its products from large commercial refrigeration equipment and most air-conditioning units.

The company claims there have been no known safety problems since 1995, when they were widely introduced to replace ozone-depleting CFC gases.

The Commission's enquiries will focus on the CEN technical committee TC182, which Calor claims has been used to reach an anti-competitive agreement, illegal under Article 81 of the EU Treaty.

On the committee's key working group, three hydrocarbon company delegates are outnumbered by nine members from

HFC-related firms including Solvay, Dupont, Atofina, Trane and United Technologies subsidiary Carrier.

Calor also claims all five of the 'project leaders' who drafted the text are from the HFC side, which it alleges is using standards to fight planned restrictions on the use of fluorinated gases.

Responding to the complaint, CEN conceded that its standards 'occasionally' resulted in unnecessary trade restrictions, but said it had written to the committee to request that it re-examine the technical case against hydrocarbons.

'I think inadvertently the standard has been drawn up in such a way that it excludes hydrocarbon gases,' said David Woolliscroft, CEN's director of standards management.

'By raising the issue in this way I would hope that it be addressed.'

But equipment manufacturers that favour HFCs insist the new standards are fair. 'These standards are looking at safety - they're not there to pursue environmental priorities,' said Darcy Nicolle, spokesman for air-conditioning producer Carrier.

'If we could use hydrocarbons safely we would go ahead and do it - but we're too worried about safety concerns.'

CEN, the European committee for standardisation, is facing a competition probe into claims that it has been hijacked by an industry 'cartel' determined to exclude rivals from their markets.