Food firms fined for price-fixing of mushrooms
Three companies, which fixed the price of tinned mushrooms over an 18 month period, have been fined by the European Commission.
The European Commission yesterday (25 June) fined Prochamp and Bonduelle a total of €32.2 million for fixing the price of tinned mushrooms across Europe between September 2010 and February 2012.
A third participant in the cartel, Lutèce, a major processor of mushrooms in Europe, received immunity from the Commission as the whistleblower. It would have otherwise received a fine of €20.7m.
Bonduelle, which has annual revenues in the region of €2 billion was fined €30m. French family firm Bonduelle is Europe’s largest vegetable processor. Prochamp is a privately-owned processor of mushrooms and was fined €2m.
Both companies received a 10% reduction in their fine because they settled the charges.
The mushroom processors resorted to collusion in order to prevent mushroom prices from falling further.
The Commission in November fined four traders €28m for fixing the price of North Sea shrimps, also known as crevettes grises.
The Commission’s antitrust department recently set up a special task force to investigation competition abuses in the food sector.
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