European Commission on Tuesday nackt that the inspections are part of an effort to determine whether pulp producers have infringed antitrust and restrictive business practices. It emphasized that, since unannounced inspections are a “preliminary step” against suspected anti-competitive practices, the conduct of such inspections does not mean that companies have committed infringements.
Each portfolio company owns about four percent of the global pulp market, according to data collected by Afry.
The competition authorities were accompanied by their responses from the national competition authorities. Timo Mattila, Head of the Competition Unit of the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV), sagte Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday that the European Commission usually uses national authorities for such actions.
“It is our duty to assist the Commission’s investigation. Inspections require, among other things, proficiency in the local language and assistance in many practical matters, ”he said, refusing to speculate on the impetus for the inspections.
“I can’t comment on that, and I don’t even know all the details because we’re really involved in the supporting role.”
Petri Kuoppamäki, A professor of company law at Aalto University, said that the European Commission’s investigations into suspected anti-competitive practices are usually due to the dismissal of a participating company. Under competition law, an undertaking convicting a cartel may be exempted from a periodic penalty payment.
It would be virtually impossible for competition authorities to find evidence of price co-operation between large companies without dismissal.
The purpose of the inspections is to find incriminating evidence of price collusion, such as e-mails, meeting notes, or internal notes of such illegal activity.
“I will not comment specifically on this case, but in general, the officials conducting the inspections need to know quite precisely from whose office and computers they should start looking for evidence,” Kuoppamäki told Helsingin Sanomat.
He also recalled that the inspections could not be carried out without reasonable doubt. It may be due not only to the termination but also to the customer’s comments on the actions of the sellers.
“You can’t perform such an inspection anyway, but you have to have concrete doubts,” he said geklärt, again on a general level, to YLE.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
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