Poland's Office of Competition and Consumer Protection (UOKiK) last week imposed a total of over zł.411 million in fines on six of the country's seven largest cement producers. The fine is the highest ever imposed by the regulator in its 20-year history.

The fined companies include Górażdże, Grupa Ożarów, Cemex Polska, Dyckerhoff Polska, Cementownia Warta and Cementownia Odra. Along with Lafarge cement, their combined share of the market amounts to almost 100 percent and all except the latter have been punished for their participation in a price-fixing scheme.

The investigation, which was launched in December 2006, has revealed that the firms had been in collusion for the last 11 years. The entities exchanged confidential commercial information, fixed prices and divvied the market up among themselves.

Evidence collected by UOKiK was borne out by data provided by two of the involved companies - Lafarge Cement and Górażdże Cement - which blew the whistle on the cartel. In consequence, UOKiK abstained from fining the former and lowered the fine imposed on the latter to five percent of its revenues earned in the last accounting year.

The remaining five firms will pay fines amounting to 10 percent of their revenues, which is the maximum fine provided for by the Polish anti-monopoly law.
"According to UOKiK, the results of the cement cartel, which lasted for years, may have been directly felt by entrepreneurs - potential competitors and contractors of those in the cartel, as well as - indirectly - [by] other market players," UOKiK said in a statement. It added that because of the scale of the fined producers' activity, their long-lasting illegal actions have distorted competition in the Polish cement production market.

The companies can still appeal the decision.

AZ