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#Antitrust - Commission re-adopts decision and fines five producers of reinforcing steel bars €16 million for price-fixing cartel

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The European Commission has re-adopted a cartel decision against five Italian manufacturers of reinforcing steel bars for concrete, namely AlfaAcciai, Feralpi Holding, Ferriere Nord, Partecipazioni Industriali (Riva Fire) and Valsabbia Investimenti / Ferriera Valsabbia. In its decision, the Commission has imposed total fines of €16,074,000 for the companies' participation in a price fixing cartel between December 1989 and July 2000.

The cartel has already been the subject of two previous Commission decisions. In December 2002, the Commission adopted a decision imposing fines on eight steel manufacturers and the Italian steel manufacturers' association. The General Court annulled this decision in October 2007. In September 2009, the Commission re-adopted a decision imposing fines on all eight companies. In December 2014, the General Court upheld the 2009 decision, which became final for the three companies that did not appeal. In September 2017, the Court of Justice set aside the General Court's judgments and annulled the 2009 Commission decision. Both the General Court annulment of the Commission's 2002 decision and the Court of Justice annulment of the Commission's 2009 decision were based on procedural grounds. The newest decision addresses this issue and re-imposes fines on the five manufacturers. The re-adoption of this decision is based on the public interest in pursuing an effective and deterrent enforcement against cartels. The re-adopted decision includes an exceptional 50% fine reduction for all five companies. This is in recognition of the long duration of proceedings  which is  not attributable to the companies involved. The decision will be made available under case number 37956 in the public case register on the Commission's competition website. More information on the Commission's action against cartels is available in the cartels section of the competition website.

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