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The European Commission is to investigate cement companies after suspicions arose that they may have operated an illegal cartel.
Various offices of Lafarge, Cemex, Holcim, HeidelbergCement and Dyckerhoff in the UK, Germany , Belgium, Luxembourg and France were raided by European anti-trust authorities last week.
“The commission has reason to believe that the companies concerned may have violated (EU) antitrust rules that prohibit cartels and restrictive business practices and/or abuse of a dominant market position,” the EU statement said.
The European Commission fined more than 40 companies in 1994 for running a cartel to keep prices artificially raised. In 2000, an EU court reduced the original total amount the companies were fined from 248 million euros to 108 million euros.
