Posted on 16 Jul 2018
One day after the Bundeskartellamt, the German cartel office, issued its verdict on a price fixing cartel by several specialty steelmakers, Austria’s voestalpine has issued a statement on the case. The fines issued so far by the cartel office total €205 million ($239m).
The group which has production sites in Germany was the whistleblower in this case, and therefore was covered by the leniency act, with no penalty to bear. The group is careful to emphasise that the case shows that its compliance system is working well.
“The violations were discovered within the group as the result of routine audits which are undertaken regularly as part of the compliance organisation,” it says in the statement. “After their discovery they were thoroughly assessed, and then disclosed to the Bundeskartellamt.” The steelmaker adds that the employees involved no longer work at the group.
Apart from several companies, the penalty also affects the former association of speciality steel producers, Edelstahl-Vereinigung, which has meanwhile been liquidated (see Kallanish 13 July). In this context, voestalpine notes that it has comprehensively re-evaluated all of its association memberships and activities and reduced them to a necessary minimum.
Furthermore, the group is currently examining whether customers might have suffered as a result of these events. “Here it should be noted that the levying of transparent and uniform surcharges was often supported or even demanded by customers,” it adds.
