Competition: Court of First Instance upholds most of the fines imposed in Cartonboard cartel investigation

Seven separate judgements have been issued by the CFI to decide the appeals lodged by some of the cartonboard cartel participants fined in 1994 by the European Commission for serious anti-competitive practices. The companies in question were found to have engaged in a concerted practice in which they:

• agreed regular price increases for each grade of product in each national currency;
• planned and implemented simultaneous and uniform price increases through the European Community;
• reached an understanding on maintaining the market shares of the major producers at constant levels; and
• took concerted measures to control the supply of the product in the Community in order to ensure the implementation of the concerted price rises.

Most of the appeals centred around evidential standards and the principles applied by the Commission in setting the level of fines.

In only one case, the Court found that the Commission had insufficient evidence of the applicant's participation in the cartel and therefore partially annulled the Commission's decision as far as it concerned that company. Sufficient evidence was, however, found to exist to substantiate the decision fining the other six applicants. The main concession on substance granted to the applicants was that the Commission's decision prohibiting future exchanges of information went too far. The Court held that such a provision exceeds what is necessary because it seeks to prevent the exchange of purely statistical information on the ground that the information exchanged might be used for anti-competitive purposes. Consequently, the Court annulled part of the prohibition to exchange information.

As regards the level of fines imposed, the Court allowed some minor modifications. In one case, the Court adjusted the level of fine due to the annulment of part of the decision concerning the exchange of information and reduced the fine from ECU 15,500,000 to 14,000,000. In another, the Court upheld the applicant's claim that the Commission incorrectly assessed the criteria for determining the fine and therefore reduced the fine from ECU 1,750,000 to ECU 750,000. The remaining claims for reductions in the levels of fine were either de minimis or rejected by the Court.