NMa: cartel cases in Dutch painting industry completed

Since June 2009, the Netherlands Competition Authority (NMa) has imposed fines on 16 different painting companies. Between 2004 and 2006, these companies were involved in six cartels (in various compositions) participating in various public tenders for painting contracts in the Eindhoven region, a city in the southern part of the Netherlands.

Prior to submitting their own bids for these tenders, the painting companies in question divided the work, harmonized their bids, and in some cases even agreed on mutual compensations. The facilitator to these cartels, a cost engineering firm, has already been fined. The fines in all of these cases total €434,000.

'These six cartel cases have given us some food for thought, particularly with regard to compliance of the Competition Act in the painting industry,' says Pieter Kalbfleisch, chairman of the Board of the NMa. He warns: 'We will continue to focus our attention on this industry in 2010.'