Today (Wednesday) the EU Commission fined eight manufacturers and two distributors of retail food packaging trays a total of €115,865,000 for having participated in at least one of five separate cartels.

The eight manufacturers are Huhtamäki of Finland, Nespak and Vitembal of France, Silver Plastics of Germany, Coopbox, Magic Pack and Sirap-Gema of Italy and Linpac of the UK. The two distributors are Ovarpack of Portugal and Propack of the UK.

The EU Commission said the companies fixed prices and allocated customers of polystyrene foam or polypropylene rigid trays, in breach of EU antitrust rules. Polystyrene foam and polypropylene rigid trays are used for packaging food sold in shops or supermarkets, for products such as cheese, meat, fish or cake.

UK manufacturer Linpac benefited from full immunity under the Commission's 2006 Leniency Guidelines as it revealed the existence of the cartels to the Commission. Commeting today on the finding by the Commission, Linpac said it "fully accepts the findings of the European Commission following its investigation into the packaging sector.

"We apologise for any wrongdoing by LINPAC employees in the past. As soon as LINPAC became aware of the anti-competitive behaviour, which took place before 2008 and before our current management team was in place, the company alerted the European Commission."

Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said, "Millions of consumers buying food for themselves and their families have potentially been hit by these cartels. The companies concerned carved up the retail food packaging market and agreed on prices rather than competing on their merits. Cartels harm our entire economy when companies set prices instead of the market. This removes the incentive to innovate and will not be tolerated."

From the early 2000s and for periods ranging from just over a year to almost eight years, and with some differences between the cartels, the ten companies fixed prices, allocated customers and markets, engaged in bid-rigging and exchanged commercially-sensitive information.

Each of the cartels operated within the framework of multilateral and bilateral contacts usually held on the fringes of legitimate industry gatherings. Apparently, physical meetings were complemented by numerous emails and phone exchanges. In some of these cartels, the participants would refer to their illegal contacts as "the Club" or "Mafia".

In setting the level of fines, the Commission took into account, in particular, the companies' sales of the products concerned in the EEA, the serious nature of the infringement, its geographic scope and its duration.