German Plant Protection Products Cartel

On 13 January 2020, the German competition authority (Bundeskartellamt) imposed fines of EUR 154.6 million on seven wholesalers of plant protection products and their responsible employees for agreeing on price lists, discounts and some individual sales prices to retailers and end customers in Germany between 1998 and March 2015. Until 2008, the cartelists also agreed on discount margins and net prices (sales prices to retailers without further discounts).

The agreements were based on a joint calculation by the cartelists which led to largely uniform price lists for retailers and end customers. Particularly during the beginning of the cartel, several wholesalers simply used the agreed price list and just added their respective company logo to the final list. The Bundeskartellamt’s dawn raid in March 2015 terminated the anti-competitive practices.

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