Bundeskartellamt imposes fines in cartel in sanitary sector

The Bundeskartellamt has imposed fines totalling around 21.3 million euros on nine wholesalers and an individual involved in the sanitary, heating and air conditioning sector on account of concluding anti-competitive agreements.

The companies, which were members of an association called “Mittelstandskreis Nordrhein-Westfalen”, are accused of having coordinated the calculation of their gross price lists and sales prices over several years.

Andreas Mundt, President of the Bundeskartellamt: "A so-called calculation committee met at least four times a year. At these meetings information was exchanged on gross prices, purchasing conditions, discounts and other current developments. The members of the group issued their own gross price lists based on the information exchanged. However, price alignment occurred due to the common calculation basis. This significantly restricted competition between the companies. The subject matter of the coordinated calculation, which was also important as a calculation guide for the sector nationwide, were at least 250,000 products from the sanitary sector."

The companies involved are Dekker & Detering Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, Emden, Elmer GmbH & Co. KG, Warendorf, Heinrich Schmidt GmbH & Co. KG, Mönchengladbach, J.W. Zander GmbH & Co. KG, Essen, Kurt Pietsch GmbH & Co. KG, Ahaus, Mosecker GmbH & Co. KG, Münster, Otto Bechem & Co. KG, Essen, Reinshagen & Schröder GmbH & Co. KG, Remscheid, and Wiedemann GmbH & Co. KG, Sarstedt. The proceeding against AGS Verlag AG, Münster, will be closed due to the insolvency of the company. Investigations against another company are still ongoing. Some of the companies mentioned were not involved in the alleged conduct during the entire period from 2005 to 2013.

The agreements date back to the 1970s. The competition authorities initially raised no objections to them. At that time small and medium-sized companies did not have the technical possibilities to issue their own price calculations for a large number of products and have them printed in catalogues. However, this technical justification from the 1970s has long been obsolete and therefore no longer applies. The companies would have been obliged to reassess and cease their anti-competitive conduct.
In setting the fines the Bundeskartellamt considered the fact that the companies competed with considerably larger market players as a mitigating circumstance.

All the companies cooperated with the Bundeskartellamt in uncovering the cartel. This led to a reduction of their fines in accordance with the authority's leniency programme.
The fines are final. Settlements to end the proceedings were agreed with all the companies and the person involved.