France fines 13 firms $1.2 bln for price-fixing
Source: AP-Excite
By JAMEY KEATEN
PARIS (AP) — Penalizing a dirty business involving cleaning products, French regulators fined 13 consumer-products makers about 950 million euros ($1.2 billion) for price fixing on goods like shampoos, detergents and toothpaste.
France's competition authority said Thursday that the companies sought to maintain "artificially high" prices in negotiations with supermarkets which filtered down to consumers — and ultimately impacted the French economy.
Among those implicated were household names like U.S.-based Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and Sara Lee and Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever.
The sanctions came in two segments — cleaning and hygiene products.
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FILE - This Aug. 2, 2010, file photo, shows the Procter & Gamble Co. headquarters building in Cincinnati. France's antitrust authority has slapped penalties totaling some 950 million euros ($1.2 billion) against 13 consumer-goods makers for illegally colluding on prices for hygiene and cleaning products including shampoos, toothpaste and detergents. The wrongdoing involved, among others, U.S.-based Colgate-Palmolive, Procter & Gamble, and Sara Lee, Anglo-Dutch firm Unilever and Britain's Reckitt Benckiser. (AP Photo/Al Behrman, File)
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