Derbyshire concrete firm hit with £7m fine

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has issued three firms – including one from Derbyshire – with fines totalling more than £36m for breaking competition law in supplying certain concrete drainage products for building projects.

Following an investigation by the CMA, the Northern Ireland-based firm FP McCann is facing a fine of more than £25m for its part in the scheme. Derbyshire-based Stanton Bonna Concrete and Somerset-based CPM Group are due to pay more than £7m and £4m respectively.

The fines have been imposed after the CMA found that the companies broke competition law by taking part in an illegal cartel covering Great Britain. From July 2006 to March 2013, they agreed to fix or coordinate their prices, shared the market by allocating customers and regularly exchanged competitively sensitive information.

These arrangements continued for nearly seven years and involved meetings attended by senior executives from each of the firms. The CMA recorded a number of these meetings and used them as evidence when arriving at its final decision.

Last year, two of the three firms, Stanton Bonna Concrete and CPM Group, both accepted that they broke competition law by engaging in these arrangements. Accordingly, under the CMA’s provisions for leniency and settlement processes, they have received reductions to their fines.

Andrea Coscelli, the CMA’s Chief Executive, said: “These companies entered into illegal arrangements where they secretly shared out the market for important building products and agreed to keep prices artificially high. This is totally unacceptable as it cheats customers out of getting a good deal.

“The CMA will not hesitate to issue appropriately large fines in these cases and we will continue to crack down on cartels in the construction sector and in other industries.”