Posted on 15 Jan 2019
German steel federation Wirtschaftsvereinigung (WV) Stahl has been implicated in the German cartel office’s investigation into price fixing by various makers and processors of speciality steel.
The federation will have to pay a sum in the lower six-digit euro range, a spokesman of the federal cartel office tells Kallanish, confirming an earlier report in Rheinische Post. Only late last week, the daily revealed that Georgsmarienhütte was one of the companies involved in the case, and was fined €85 million ($98m). Last July six companies were fined a combined €205m. Two more companies involved in that price-fixing case have not yet been identified.
WV Stahl declined to comment on the case. The cartel office spokesman says the office and the federation are in close dialogue. The office is also reviewing WV Stahl’s role in other ongoing steel cases, for example one on plate and strip, he said.
Last year the cartel office imposed a total of €379m of fines across all cases and industries, it said in its annual review statement. While it seems striking that €290m of fines were imposed in steel cases alone, the spokesman says that such a skewed figure is not unusual. “Each year, you have two or three large cases that are completed, plus several smaller ones,” he explains.
The size of the penalty is in relation to a company’s revenue, rather than the degree of their misconduct. Given that steel companies are comparably large-sized, so is the sum imposed as a fine, he says.
