The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Spanish National Court has annulled fines amounting to 57.7 million Euro which the National Commission of the Competition Market (CNMC) had imposed on 18 paper and corrugated cardboard manufacturers. The firms had been accused of setting agreed prices and sharing their customers, but the sanctions were issued five days after the deadline. There are four Valencian companies among the ones that have benefitted from the decision: Cartonajes Europe (fined with 390.227 Euro), Cartonajes La Plana (2.67 million), Rafael Hinojosa (2.68 million) and Suministros Industriales de Cartón y Envases (439,341 Euro).
The Chamber recalled that the Law for the Protection of Competition sets the deadline to issue a resolution of the sort at 18 months. In this case, the procedure was initiated on May 10, 2013 and should have ended on November 10, 2014, but was suspended for various reasons for a total of 220 days.
"In accordance with Article 36.1 of the Law, the final date on which the sanctioning resolution should have been issued and notified to the sanctioned entities was June 18, 2015. Since it took place on June 23, the procedure had already expired," says the ruling.
Nevertheless, the court recalls that the resolution of the CNMC considered it "clear" that there had been coordination on the part of the paper and cardboard industry to fix prices and compete with an advantage in the sale of packaging materials."
