Chemicals group Akzo Nobel is one of 10 companies fined by European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes for cartel forming between 1987 and 2000.

Akzo Nobel has been ordered to pay some €40m out of a total bill of €173m. Other companies in the cartel for plastics additives were Ciba, part of the BASF group and Total subsidiary Elf Aquitaine.
‘They allocated markets between themselves. They shared customers,’ Kroes said at a news conference. ‘And they exchanged commercially sensitive information. Their aim was to deny customers throughout the EEA a competitive choice, with all that implies for prices.’
For Kroes’ statement, click here