FTC Selected “Best Team of The Year 2005” by UK Periodical for Disposing Highly-watched International Cement Cartel Case
E060222Y4 Mar. 2006（E76）
The Global Competition Review (GCR) selected the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) the Team of The Year in 2005 for the FTC’s successful investigation and disposition of the cement cartel case. GCR’s Team of The Year in 2004 was the European Commission’s ad hoc group investigating the antitrust case against Microsoft. GCR is published by the London-based Law Business Research Limited. It is a special publication on competition law, competition law enforcements and competition law practitioners. The Team of The Year is selected by GCR’s subscribers annually. The FTC is selected Team of the Year in 2005 for investigating and disposing the concerted price-fixing practice by 21 Taiwanese cement businesses.
That case is a highly-watched case internationally. East Asian countries’ cement consumption sharply declined in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis. Holders of consequent surplus scurried hither and thither for the opportune moment to dash into competition to empty their inventory at a low price. This impacted the world’s cement market as a whole. Top 5 international cement groups—Lafarge from France, Holcim from Switzerland, Cemex from Mexico, Heidelberg from Germany and Italy Cement from Italy—raced to merge and acquire East Asian cement businesses and eventually got hold of a total of over 53% of the total cement output capacity in the region. The Philippine cement market, in particular, has 95% of its cement production capacity controlled by foreign investors. To avoid fierce price competition among themselves, Taiwanese cement businesses reached a cartel deal with the Cemex Group from Mexico at the end of 2002. According to the terms of the deal, participants in the deal agreed to refrain from price competition on the sale of the surplus output from this region. As a result of the cartel deal, cement sold in the East Asian countries and exported to other regions showed a continued increase in price. (2006.02)
