EU: No ECJ mercy for millions of appealed cartel fines

Two companies lost their appeal of cartel fines in the European Court of Justice on Thursday. The Court denied the $84.5 million fine appeal initiated by Dow Chemical Co. following the sanction by the European Commission in 2006. Dow as part of five companies fined for rigging rubber prices; Bayer was also found to have participated in the cartel but was not fined as it was part of the EU’s leniency program. The ECJ also upheld a more-than $188 million fine issued to transport manufacturer Schindler Holding AG following an appeal of the fine issued by the Commission in 2007 for price-fixing and bid-rigging. The escalator and elevator maker was one of five firms fined for the cartel; sanctions totaled more than $1 billion. The regulator found the companies, which included ThyssenKrupp, colluded between 1995 and 2004 in various EU nations. ThyssenKrupp won a reduction of its fine in an appeal in 2011.

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