Plumbing company and management members from several plumbing companies pay fines in settlements for bid rigging

The plumbing company Christoffersen & Knudsen has exchanged information on prices and other terms with their competitor Sanoterm Danmark A/S, which has now gone bankrupt. The cartel agreements occurred in the end of 2012 in connection with a bid for plumbing work on the construction project “Enebærhaven”. For this infringement, Christoffersen & Knudsen A/S accepted to pay a fine of DKK 575.000 (€ 77.000).

In the same case complex, the company Fredensborg VVS-Teknik A/S accepted to pay a fine of DKK 1 million (€ 134.000) in August 2017 for having coordinated bids with a competitor in connection with five construction projects.

Furthermore, three members of the management from the three respective companies Christoffersen & Knudsen, Fredensborg VVS-Teknik and Sanoterm Denmark have each paid a fine of DKK 25.000 (€ 3.350).

In 2015, the Danish Competition and Consumer Authority received a tip and initiated an investigation of bid rigging among several plumbing companies. Based on the investigations, the Competition Council decided to hand over the case to the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime for the purpose of criminal proceedings.