PRESS RELEASE

INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING: ANTITRUST SANCTIONS CARTEL MEMBERS WITH OVER 76 MILLION EUROS IN FINES

Twenty-two businesses met to fix price increases over the course of five years, including several multinationals and involving active contributions by the sector federation (Federazione di categoria). Fines were calibrated to variations in the roles and length of participation in the agreement.

Nineteen companies in the land-based international shipping sector were fined over 76 million euros for restricting competition by agreeing on the price increases applied to clients. The Schenker corporation (a subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn AG) avoided fines by applying for clemency and helping to identify the other cartel members. The Antitrust Authority made this ruling at the conclusion of investigatory proceedings that reconstructed over five years of price fixing from March 2002 to fall 2007. The cartel members were Agility, Albini & Pitigliani, Alpi Padana, Brigl, Cargo Nord, Dhl Global Forwarding, Dhl Express, Francesco Parisi, Gefco, Geodis Wilson, I-Dika, Italmondo, Italsempione, Itk Zardini, ITX Cargo, Rhenus, Saima, Schenker, Sittam, Spedipra, Villanova and Armando Vidale, with Fedespedi (the sector federation) participating in an active organizational role. Antitrust sanctioning powers were also prescribed for Alpi Padana and Spedipra.

The investigations proved the existence of an intensely concerted effort:  the companies and association agreed on continuous increases in prices and price components during more than 20 meetings, in numerous email contacts and intense communications both inside and outside of the sector. These meetings involved the sharing of cost-related information (fuel price fluctuations, foreign highway tolls and the cost structures of participants, in particular) and, most importantly, the reaching of agreements on the size and form of price increases. After the decisions were made, Fedespedi would send memorandums out to member businesses and associations, who would in turn issue press releases to ease in the price increases for their contractual counterparts. This also made it possible for businesses that were not directly participating in the cartel to behave in a manner consistent with the concerted actions.

According to the Antitrust Authority, the agreement seriously altered the dynamics of competition:  the businesses enjoyed a common baseline whenever they fielded price increases, which they could apply with reasonable certainty that their competitors would embrace similar increases instead of engaging in price wars.  In a similar fashion, they were well aware that their commercial counterparts already knew of the price increases because of the press releases, which conveyed a sense of sector-wide trends that discouraged any thoughts of switching over to other international shipping suppliers, who would presumably be adopting the same pricing trends.

The basic documents of the investigation also revealed that the price increases themselves were in fact considerable, with public data alone telling of a nearly 50% increase between March 2002 and December 2006.

All of the sector's main operators participated in the consultation for the entire time period that was analyzed, starting in 2002. In addition to participating for longer periods than other businesses, a few of these played an even more active role in ensuring the cartel's stability, including Agility, Albini, Brigl, Dhl, Italsempione, Schenker, Schenker and Vidale, which formed the cartel's "inner core." First Schenker and later Agility and Dhl, however, made statements that facilitated the Authority's intervention.  Schenker in particular was granted immunity because of the critical contributions it made to identifying the other cartel members and "fine-tuning" the inspections. Agility and Dhl confirmed and reinforced the probatory framework provided by Schenker, and in acknowledgement the Authority reduced their respective fines by 50% and 49%.

In recognition of its collaboration, fines for the Sittam corporation were also reduced by 10%.

To calculate the remaining fines, the Antitrust Authority took into account balance sheet trends, intensity of participation in the cartel and extent of collaboration offered during the course of the investigation.  In the case of Fedespi, the repeated nature of the violation was considered an aggravating factor. Conduct similar to what was contested in this inquiry, in fact, had already been subject to proceedings that concluded in March 1993.

The following table summarizes the individual fines:

Total                                                                                            76,483,668

Rome - 16 June 2011