The Chilean National Economic Prosecutor's Office (FNE) has called for sanctions on BioMar, Skretting, and Salmofood for alleged price collusion between 2003 and 2015.
The case was originally presented in December 2019, when the FNE told the Court for the Defense of Free Competition (TDLC) that BioMar Chile, Comercializadora Nutreco Chile Limitada (Skretting), EWOS Chile Alimentos Limitada, and Vitapro Chile (Salmofood) actively worked together to fix their sale prices of fishmeal and fish oil over the aforementioned 12-year period.
EWOS was acquired by U.S.-based Cargill in October 2015. Shortly after the purchase, Cargill was informed about practices in the salmon feed industry in Chile that it said were inconsistent with its corporate competition policy and which possibly violated Chilean competition law. Cargill said it immediately initiated an investigation, self-reported to and began to coordinate with the FNE in January 2016, and ceased participating in the problematic conduct.
Under Chilean law, whistleblowers are automatically exonerated from having any charges brought against them regarding illicit activity on which they are reporting. As such, EWOS was pardoned by the FNE.
FNE Deputy Chief of its Litigation Division Eduardo Aguilera has now presented to the TDLC part of the “abundant evidence” it has gathered, giving detailed accounts of the defendants’ collusive behavior, according to a statement by the FNE.
In particular, Aguilera revealed how, at first, the companies exchanged price lists to coordinate feed prices or any price adjustments. After a couple of years, this illicit coordination was expanded to include the cost of raw materials.
The alleged conspiracy was coordinated through emails, meetings, and phone calls between executives and sales staff, who exchanged pricing information both for raw materials and their finished products, as well as their production and supply volumes. There is evidence that those involved made attempts to eliminate traces of their contacts and supposed illegal behavior during the period in question, FNE said.
While the scheme was limited only to Chile, all four companies FNE alleges were involved in price-fixing are based outside of Chile. BioMar is owned by Brande, Denmark-headquartered Schouw & Co.; Skretting is owned by Nutreco, which is based in Amersfoort, the Netherlands; and Salmofood is owned by Lima, Peru-based Alicorp.
The information upon which the case has been built was obtained both under cooperation by EWOS and by raids carried out by the country’s Prosecutor’s Office on the questioned companies’ offices during the investigation process, which ended with the FNE bringing the case to the TDLC.
Government officials have previously called for severe penalties against the companies in question if they are proven to have fixed the prices of fishmeal and fish oil.
FNE has asked the TDLC to levy against each of the three companies the maximum fines outlined under the applicable law at the time the supposed crimes were committed. That sanction would amount to the equivalent of CLP 24.8 billion (USD 26.3 million, EUR 22.5 million) per company, bringing the total fines to more than CLP 74.4 billion (USD 79 million, EUR 67.4 million).
