Japan’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said on Friday that it would issue warnings to Daiichi Pharmaceutical and Eisai Co Ltd for their role in an international cartel that price-fixed the market for vitamin products.
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The FTC said the two local firms were suspected of having violated Article 3 of the Japanese Anti-Monopoly Law, which prohibits the improper exclusion of competitors, and Article 6, which bans certain types of international agreements and contracts by companies.
Eisai, along with Roche, BASF and France’s Rhone-Poulenc (now Aventis), allegedly fixed prices for Synthetic Vitamin E at a meeting in January 1991. Daiichi is also suspected of fixing basic global market shares for Vitamin B5, with Roche and BASF.
The competition watchdog has decided not to take any action against the three European companies involved citing insufficient evidence.
In the US, the Justice Department in May 1999 ordered the same companies to pay record fines for contravening US federal laws. Swiss pharmaceuticals giant Roche and Germany’s BASF agreed to pay a record US$500m in criminal fines, while Eisai and Daiichi Pharmaceutical paid up to US$45m and US$25m respectively to settle the case.
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By GlobalDataVitamins are used in the fortification of food products.
