Chemicals firms Akzo Nobel, BASF AG and UCB will tomorrow be fined €66 million by the European Commission for running a vitamin B-4 cartel, according to a source close to the case.
The Commission will fine Dutch firm Akzo Nobel about €21 million, Germany's BASF AG about €35 million and Belgium's UCB about €10 million, the source said.
The Commission will say the companies operated a cartel for vitamin B-4, a supplement used in animal feed and pet foods also known as choline chloride.
The decision will be one of the first high-profile actions by new Competition Commissioner Ms Neelie Kroes, who took office last month after enduring heavy criticism in some quarters for her business background.
The Commission is making cartel-busting one of its highest competition priorities, and other vitamin cartels have already drawn hefty penalties in Europe and the US.
The United States levied a record $725 million of fines for vitamin cartels in 1999, including a $225 million charge on BASF.
In 2001 the Commission fined eight firms a total of €855 million, its highest-ever sector fine, including a €296 million euro fine paid by BASF.
In June 2003, a US Federal District Court jury found that Japan's Mitsui & Co Ltd. and three other companies fixed the price of choline chloride and fined them $147 million.
Akzo Nobel was fined for its part in a sodium glutamate cartel in 2001, and escaped fines in 2003 after confessing to its part in a 29-year organic peroxides cartel.
