EU fines Bridgestone for price-fixing

The European Union fined Bridgestone Corporation of Japan euro 58.5 million ($77 million) today for its role in a cartel that fixed prices for hoses to load and unload oil tankers.

Sweden's Trelleborg AB and Italy's Parker ITR must pay around euro 25 million ($33 million) each as a six-company investigating yielded a total of euro 131 million ($173 million) in fines.

EU Antitrust Commissioner Neelie Kroes says that for over two decades "the cartel added to the prices consumers paid for their oil deliveries''.

In May 2007, regulators raided companies in France, Italy and Britain--where Bridgestone operates--joining the US and Japanese officials in an investigation into a suspected global cartel for the hoses.

"I will not tolerate illegal cartels and will continue to impose heavy fines on those companies found guilty of this kind of serious malpractice,'' Kroes said.

The Commission said that cartel members regularly met in Europe, East Asia and the United States, carving up the global market to the extent that some companies referred to big regions as their "private markets.''

While the fines of Bridgestone and Parker were increased by 30 per cent because of their leadership role in the cartel, Yokohama Tires of Japan escaped a euro 14.4 million ($19 million) fine because it revealed the cartel and cooperated in the probe.

The European market for such hoses stands at about euro 32 million ($42 million) a year.