News milk
Fine for Romanian subsidiaries Lactalis
Three Romanian subsidiaries of the French dairy giant Lactalis have been fined by the competition authority there for obstructing investigations into possibly prohibited price agreements. Research has also been carried out in this context at 3 other companies.
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FrieslandCampina Romania is also among the companies visited. Nothing has yet been reported about the results of the investigation into possible prohibited price agreements.
The competition authority started a major investigation in March into possible price fixing in the markets for butter, sunflower oil and sugar. As part of this, unannounced visits were made to companies in these sectors. This also applies to three Lactalis subsidiaries in Romania: Albalact, Covalact and Dorna Lactate.
There, the local administrator of parent company Lactalis refused access to the server, the Romanian media reported. The competition authority sees this as obstruction and has punished it with a fine of around €30.000 per day. For the three subsidiaries together, the bill has risen to almost €3 million. By now something was about to change.
Now we have to wait for the findings of the actual investigation: have prohibited price agreements been made or not?