The European Commission on Tuesday announced a fine of 157 million for five companies in the chemical sector – Sunpor, Synbra, Synthomer, Synthos and Trinseo – for price fixing in the market for styrene monomer, a substance mainly used in the production of plastics, paints, synthetic rubbers and resins.
The firms admitted their participation between 2012 and 2018 in the cartel sanctioned by Brussels and agreed to collaborate to resolve the case, as reported by the community services, which specify that the illegal pact was revealed by a sixth company, INEOS, which for its collaboration has not been fined.
Thus, the company that will assume the payment of a greater amount is Synthomen, with 43 million euros; followed by Trinseo, with 32.6 million; Synthos, with 32.5 million; and Synbra, with 17.2 million. The Community Executive granted reductions of between 20 and 50% to all of them for their collaboration during the process.
According to the EC Executive, the six styrene buyers exchanged confidential business information and coordinated their negotiating strategy on a styrene industry reference price (monthly contract price or MCPS) that was widely used in the industry and often formed part of the pricing formula in supplier agreements.
Unlike most cartels where companies conspire to increase their selling prices, the six companies colluded to reduce an element of the styrene price, the European Commission said in a statement.
In particular, the companies coordinated their price negotiation strategies before and during bilateral SMCP settlement negotiations with styrene sellers to influence this reference price in their favor.
They also exchanged price-related information before and during their negotiations with styrene sellers. These practices are prohibited by EU competition rules because they distort the competitive process, which should be based on individual decisions of market participants.
