It concerns violations of competition law in the years 2011 to 2016.
31 companies were fined by the Romanian competition authority for violations of competition law at timber auctions between 2011 and 2016. The competition authority examined the regulations in over 45 auctions.
Among those convicted are daughters of Austrian timber companies, namely Egger Romania, HS Timber Productions and three companies belonging to the Kronospan Group.
13 companies with comparison
13 companies, including the Austrian ones, have agreed to a settlement with the Romanian competition authority. Details of the specific competition law violations are not known. First, the domestic environmental protection organization WWF reported, citing the Romanian research platform Rise.
SC Egger Romania accepts the fine, as stated in a statement by the company at the request of the KURIER. “As the investigations showed, employees from Egger Romania did not behave correctly in terms of competition law in individual cases,” it continues. Therefore, they agreed to a fine of 4.7 million euros, which was set by the Romanian competition authority.
Thomas Leissing, spokesman for Egger group management, emphasized that the violations found were not initiated by Egger Romania, but the processes objected to by the Romanian competition authority were not prevented either.
Insight shown
HS Timber Productions, a subsidiary of the HS Timber Group, formerly the Holzindustrie Schweighofer Group, is equally insightful. According to their statement, “deficiencies were found” between 2011 and 2016, which happened after a “thorough analysis of the wood purchasing processes”. HS Timber was obliged to pay around ten million euros.
For the Kronospan companies, the penalty payments amount to around 9.5 million euros.
