The Dutch consumers and markets authority ACM was correct when it fined four cigarette manufacturers a total of €82m for price fixing between July 2008 and July 2011, the company appeals court CBb has confirmed.

The court upheld a lower company court ruling which found that the four companies – British American Tobacco, JTI, Philip Morris Benelux and Van Nelle Tabak – had illegally exchanged information about the future price of cigarettes, so they could adjust their own.

In 2020, all four companies filed objections to the fines, the biggest of which went to BAT (€31m). Three of them also went to court in an effort to stop publication of the ACM’s decision, but that request was turned down at the time.

“All four companies took part in a years-long practice of indirect information exchange and used this information in determining their own pricing and strategy,” the company court said in a statement on Tuesday.

“These actions constitute concerted practices aimed at restricting competition and together form a single, continuous infringement.”