A single, continuous cartel found to have taken place on the Finnish EPS market

One of the defending arguments was, that the longer the interval between anticompetitive measures taken by the infringing parties, the higher the burden of proof regarding the single, continuous nature of the infringement would be. In the case before the Market Court there was evidence of only two meetings having taken place a year apart and one phone call.

The Market Court did not give the argument any independent merit, but resigned itself to assessing the issue according to the commonality of the objectives, the products in question, the companies involved, the means of implementation, the identity and position of the individuals participating and the geographical scope of the infringement, as indicated in EU case law.

Two of the participants were fined a total of 3,2 million euros, whereas one of the participants was granted immunity from the penalty payments, as it was the first to contact the FCCA and provide information about the cartel. The Market Court reduced the amounts of the fines for both participants as opposed to the proposition of the FCCA, but the reductions were not significant. The time for appeal has not lapsed and therefore it is not yet known if the judgment will be appealed. 

The press release of the FCCA (in English) can be found here and the judgement of the Market Court (in Finnish) can be found here.