Pipe cartel

摘要

Germany's competition authority, the Bundeskartellamt, has fined two concrete pipe manufactures € 12 million (US$ 17 million) for their role in a price fixing cartel. The conviction follows raids on the companies' offices in February last year. Berding Beton and Betonwerk Bieren are said to have shared out the North German market for concrete pipes and collaborated on prices, quotas and the allocation of orders since at least 2006. The Bundeskartellamt said it was also conducting investigations against 13 other manufacturers of concrete pipes on suspicion of price fixing.