EC fines 8 producers of capacitors €254 million for participating in cartel
Staff Writer |
The European Commission (EC) has fined Elna, Hitachi Chemical, Holy Stone, Matsuo, NEC Tokin, Nichicon, Nippon Chemi-Con, Rubycon € 253 935 000.
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Together with the immunity applicant, Sanyo, they operated a cartel for the supply of aluminium and tantalum electrolytic capacitors between 1998 and 2012.
Capacitors are electrical components that store energy electrostatically in an electric field, and are used in a wide variety of electric and electronic products.
The Commission's investigation found that from 1998 to 2012, nine Japanese companies participated in multilateral meetings and engaged in bilateral or trilateral contacts to exchange commercially sensitive information.
The objective was to coordinate future behaviour and avoid price competition. In particular, the companies exchanged information on future prices and pricing intentions, and on future supply and demand information.
In some instances, the participants also concluded price agreements and monitored their implementation.
The investigation found that the cartel participants were aware of the anti-competitive nature of their behaviour, as evidenced by their intention to conceal it.
For example, messages exchanged between the companies or internal emails containing reports of the meetings included mentions such as "Discard after reading", "After reading this email, please destroy it without stowing it away", "Since the gathering should not be disclosed to the public, please be careful when handling the contents of the present report."
The meetings involved discussions between senior managers and occasionally even presidents.
The meetings and contacts took place mainly in Japan, but the cartel conduct was implemented on a global scale, including in the European Economic Area (EEA)
In setting the level of fines, the Commission took into account, in particular, the companies' sales of capacitors in the EEA, the serious nature of the infringement, its geographic scope covering the whole EEA and its long duration.
According to the 2006 Guidelines on Fines, fines cannot exceed 10% of the annual worldwide turnover of a company. Therefore, the fines of Elna, Nippon Chemi-Con and Rubycon were capped at 10% of their total turnover.
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. and its parent Panasonic Corporation received full immunity for revealing the existence of the cartel to the Commission, thereby avoiding an aggregate fine of ca. € 32 389 000.
Hitachi Chemical, Rubycon, Elna and NEC Tokin benefited from reductions of their fines for cooperating with the Commission's investigation. The reductions reflect the timing of their cooperation and the extent to which the evidence each company provided helped the Commission to prove the existence of the cartel.
Rubycon was the first to submit compelling evidence that allowed the Commission to extend the duration of the infringement from June 1998 to August 2003. As a result, this period is not taken into account when setting the fine for Rubycon. ■