The German Federal Cartel Office has imposed fines of €75 million on five suppliers of automotive sound and vibration insulation materials for price fixing.
The companies charged by the Bonn-based cartel office are Autoneum, Carcoustics, Greiner Perfoam, Ideal Automotive and International Automotive Components Group (IAC).
The cartel office launched its investigation in September 2013 and Autoneum, which has paid a fine of €29.5 million, points out that the proceedings primarily concerned the actions of its predecessor Rieter Automotive Germany, and that it cooperated fully with the authority during the investigation, with no damage by customers of Autoneum. Autoneum is one of the largest users of nonwovens in Europe.
The companies have all agreed to pay the fines, but the cartel office is still carrying out investigations of another automotive supplier which has not been named.




