The Federal Competition Authority (BWB) will apply to the Cartel Court for a fine of 26.33 million euros against four companies in the Habau Group, it announced on Tuesday. The construction company has already recognized the offenses in the period 2002 to 2017 and the amount of the penalty.
In October 2020, the competition authority had already submitted an application to the Federal Cartel Court to impose a fine. After the company showed itself to be cooperative and acknowledged the amount of the fine in settlement talks, the BWB has now applied to the cartel court.
The cartel involved price fixing, market sharing and information exchange in public and private construction tenders. According to the BWB, the violations happened between 2002 and 2017. Other groups of companies involved in the cartel included Swietelsky, Strabag and Porr. Final fines have already been imposed on the construction groups Strabag and Porr, whereby the BWB applied for the review of the Strabag decision by the cartel court in July due to “new facts”.
In the case of the Habau Group, there are many tenders with order volumes between less than 50,000 and 60 million euros. In a particularly large number of cases, it was about road construction projects.
Habau apologizes
“The Habau Group stands for handshake quality and responsibility towards all stakeholders,” the company said in a broadcast on Tuesday. And further: “It is all the more regrettable and disappointing that there have also been agreements in our group of companies that violate antitrust law. This is in no way compatible with the values of the Habau Group cooperates with the Federal Competition Authority.”
Source: Nachrichten
