EU investigating ExxonMobil, others > Companies may have fixed prices for asphalt-making material
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BRUSSELS, Oct. 10 — ExxonMobil Corp. and other companies are being investigated by the European Union on suspicion of fixing prices for a material used in making asphalt, EU officials said Thursday.
A SEPARATE PROBE IS under way involving Bayer AG and other companies that may have colluded in producing chemicals used in tire rubber, said Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.
She refused to identify any of the companies involved, saying the investigations were at a preliminary stage. EU fines in price-fixing cases can run as high as 10% of an offender’s world-wide annual revenue, if found in breach of EU competition rules.
ExxonMobil spokesman Dmitri Schildmeijer confirmed that three of its offices were raided this month in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium by EU officials. He said the company was “fully cooperating with the investigation.” The EU carried out the raids on Oct. 1 and 2 in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Belgium, Ms. Torres told reporters Thursday.
Officials said that probe centers on whether the companies were colluding on fixing prices on bitumen, a petroleum byproduct used in making asphalt for road surfacing.
Ms. Torres said a separate investigation centered on whether chemical companies had set up a cartel in rubber products. Those raids were carried out Sept. 26.
Roland Ellmann, a spokesman for Bayer in Germany, said the raids took place Sept. 26 at Bayer headquarters in Leverkusen, Germany, and involved “chemicals for rubber.”
The EU probes were first reported in the Financial Times.
Bayer has been the subject of previous EU cartel probes. In 1988, the company was fined for joining with petrochemical producers who rigged markets for products used to make plastics.
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