Regulators bust toilet paper cartel in Chile

[Judi Lynn]

Regulators bust toilet paper cartel in Chile
AFP
October 30, 2015, 4:08 am

Santiago (AFP) - Chileans have been overpaying to wipe their bottoms, the nation's anti-trust regulators said Thursday, as they brought charges over a price-fixing scheme by the country's two largest toilet paper manufacturers.

For more than a decade, CMPC Tissue and SCA Chile colluded to split up the market and fix the price of toilet paper and other paper products, said the authority tasked with fighting economic crimes, the FNE. "This is one of the largest cases of collusion ever uncovered in the country," it said.

In charges brought before the national Free Competition Tribunal, the FNE said the companies began colluding in 2000 to force a new rival out of the market, and continued fixing prices until at least 2011.

The investigators' accusations read like something out of a mafia movie: they say employees from the two companies communicated with pre-paid cell phones, tossed computers into a drainage ditch to destroy evidence and held secretive high-level meetings at a fire station.

More:
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/29946686/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Chile flushes out decade-long conspiracy to fix the price of toilet paper

Chile flushes out decade-long conspiracy to fix the price of toilet paper

Two companies formed an ‘outrageous’ cartel to control prices of a range of paper products which ‘hurt poor people the most’, says minister

Associated Press
Thursday 29 October 2015 19.38 EDT

Two forestry companies colluded for more than a decade to control the prices of toilet paper and other products in Chile, the country’s competitive practices regulator has said.

Luis Felipe Cespedes, the economy minister, said on Thursday that the collusion between the market’s biggest players was outrageous and affected the poorest Chileans the most. The country’s president Michelle Bachelet called the alleged collusion by companies that control 90% of the toilet paper market “extremely serious”.

The regulator said on Wednesday that an antitrust court accepted its filing accusing the companies of colluding to control prices of toilet paper, napkins, absorbent towels and other products from 2000 to 2011.

“It’s one of the biggest collusion cases ever uncovered in the country,” the agency said in a statement, adding that the companies have combined annual sales of about $400m.

More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/30/chile-flushes-out-decade-long-conspiracy-to-fix-the-price-of-toilet-paper