The two largest suppliers of the UK involved with rolled lead to the roofing industry have been imposed with £9m fine for price and market rigging. The Competition and Markets Authority sent a fine copy to the largest suppliers.
An £8m fine to H.J. Enthoven that makes trading as BLM British Lead is one among them. The other saw £1.5m fine and this was to fellow Hertfordshire supplier Associated Lead Mills (ALM).
Illegal cartel was identified earlier this year, and with both the firms involved in it. Previously, investigators at the Government’s cartel watchdog provisionally found a third supplier involved in the illegality.
The company named Calder Industrial Materials had become involved at a later stage in one of the arrangements. But the investigators have now determined that there are no grounds for action and have closed the case.
Four anticompetitive arrangements took place between October 2015 and April 2017. Each of the arrangements saw commercially sensitive information exchanged.
These included colluding on prices, carving up the rolled lead market by arranging not to target certain customers, and arranging not to supply a new business because it risked disrupting the firms’ existing customer relationships.
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