The Spanish competition authority ("CNMC") has fined 11 companies and one industry association ("FACEL") which participated in five cartels, which breached EU and Spanish antitrust rules by fixing prices and other commercial conditions, as well as distributing contracts among themselves for the provision of low- and medium-voltage electric cables.
The first cartel comprised seven manufacturers (including global market players such as Prysmian and Nexans) and FACEL. The CNMC found that the participants held regular meetings and exchanged sensitive information with the assistance of FACEL with the aim of fixing prices and other commercial conditions such as discounts, terms of payment and conditions of supply. In addition, the manufacturers distributed 332 contracts of major clients amongst themselves. The cartel lasted from 2002 until 2015, and the authority imposed fines totalling €31.6 million on the manufacturers and of €80,000 on FACEL.
The CNMC fined three further cartels, each comprised of different companies, after finding that three distributors (PEISA, NICSA and AMARA) and various manufactures (including some fined in the first cartel) shared contracts amongst themselves for tenders in which they competed for the provision of cables. The companies agreed in advance the price that each manufacturer would offer, which such prices being above the price the agreed "winning" distributor would offer. The distributor then compensated the manufacturers by appointing them to provide the cables in that or other contracts. The CNMC considered that the PEISA and NICSA cartels lasted from 2006 until 2013 and fined them €3.572 million and €6.521 million respectively; and the AMARA cartel lasted from 2011 until 2015 and fined it €3.481 million.
The fifth cartel was between two distributors, which agreed to share a total of 25 contracts between themselves. The authority founded evidence of these practices between 2011 until 2015 and fined the cartel €112,626.
The CNMC had previously announced that addressing collusion in tenders would constitute one of its priorities when it presented its action plan for 2016. Since then, tender procedures have been closely scrutinised by the CNMC and a number of its recent decisions have addressed behaviour in response to tenders.
Co-author: Pablo Velasco
All articles in the December edition of the Competition newsletter
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