AGCM

PRESS RELEASE

PETROLEUM PRODUCTS: ANTITRUST AUTHORITY LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO 9 COMPANIES FOR POSSIBLE COMPETITION-RESTRICTING AGREEMENT INVOLVING WHOLESALE BITUMEN PRICES

Eni, Esso Italiana, Shell Italia, Total Italia, Api, ERG Petroli, IES-Italiana Energia e Servizi, Iplom and Alma Petroli may have colluded to keep prices high even while reference prices were in decline.

In a meeting on May 19th 2010, the Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato decided to launch an investigatory proceeding to determine whether the Eni, Esso Italiana, Shell Italia, Total Italia, Api, ERG Petroli, IES-Italiana Energia e Servizi, Iplom and Alma Petroli petroleum companies established a competition-restricting agreement in order to coordinate wholesale bitumen prices.
The interested parties were served notice of the investigation during collaborative inspections involving Special Units of the Italian Tax Police. The proceeding was prompted by violation reports that were received from individual companies and associations of companies operating in the roadwork and construction sector. The complaints made reference to anomalous fluctuations in road bitumen prices that were observed in several Italian regions starting in the summer of 2008.
According to the initial data examined by the Antitrust Authority, these different companies had been charging similar prices while the international reference price was on the rise.  When this price subsequently declined, however, the companies deviated from the reference values and maintained higher prices. The fact that parallel pricing continued to persist even after the reference price had been abandoned seems to suggest that the commercial policies of the companies involved were being coordinated.

Rome - May 27th, 2010