EU fines bathroom suppliers for fixing prices, Ideal Standard to pay $400 million

EU fines Ideal Standard $400M for price-fixing

BRUSSELS — The European Union has fined U.S. bathroom supplier Ideal Standard €326 million ($400 million) for secret deals with 16 other companies to fix prices for sinks, baths, taps and fittings in six European countries.

The EU’s executive commission said Wednesday that the cartel “harmed businesses such as builders and plumbers and ultimately, a large number of families” in Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

It also fined Germany’s V&B €71.5 million, Finland’s Sanitec €57 million and Grohe €54.8 million, levying a total of €622 million on all the companies involved. Masco, from the United States, won immunity for blowing the whistle on the others.

EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said regulators had reduced the fines for five of the companies because they argued that high financial penalties could force them into bankruptcy. He said the companies had asked the EU not to name them for seeking a discount.

The EU says seventeen bathroom suppliers coordinated sales prices from 1992 to 2004 in hundreds of meetings of a trade association and in individual contacts between companies. They agreed to fix price increases, minimum prices and rebates.

EU fines can go as high as 10 percent of yearly global revenue for each year the companies broke the law — which can often rack up to hundreds of millions of euros.