The Italian Competition Authority finds two cartels in the concrete market

In the recent decision in the Case I772, Mercato del Calcestruzzo FriuliVenezia, Giulia, the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) has found two hard-core cartels affecting the markets for the production and sale of concrete in the the north-eastern region of Friuli Venezia Giulia. The ICA started the proceedings on the basis of the evidence supplied by a concrete producer that whistled the blower by revealing the anti-competitive arrangements. The ICA found two distinct competition infrigements, one for the provinces of Udine and Pordenone and the the other for the province of Trieste, given that the concrete markets had a local territorial scope. By these agreements the parties agreed to fix prices and allocate market shares. The parties communicated which customers they would supply so that they could continue supplying their historical clients without running the risks that the other cartelists would win their clients away. A trade associaton, Intermodale, played an instrumental role in the implementation of the cartels. Intermodale collected the data submitted by the parties and prepared a table with the supply contracts awarded to every party. Moreover, at the meetings organized by Intermodale the parties discussed the prices to offer to their respective clients.
For these anti-competitive agreements the ICA penalized eight concrete producers and the trade association Intermodale, imposing fines calculated on the basis of its newly Guidelines on fining. Some of the parties applied for the inability to pay exemption. All the applications were rejected by the ICA. In some cases the applicants were considered to be solvent. In other cases the ICA considered that, though the applicants were in a difficult financial situation, the fines could not threaten the survival of other applicants since their amount were not considerable. Finally, the ICA considered whether the mitigating factor of compliance antitrust programme invoked by some parties were of relevance. The ICA decided to not apply this factor. The compliance programmes were adopted after the anti-competitive agreements were put in practice and for this reason it could not assess the effectiveness of such programmes.

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