The European Commission said on Wednesday it carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of several European smart card chip producers for antitrust concern.
The European Union (EU)'s executive arm said in a statement that the surprise raids were launched on Oct. 21, 2008 since it had reason to believe that the companies concerned may have violated EU antitrust rules prohibiting practices such as price fixing, customer allocation and the exchange of commercially sensitive information.
Surprise inspections are a preliminary step in the EU's investigations into suspected cartels. If found guilty, a company could be fined as much as ten percent of their annual global turnover for each year that it violated the law, which could be millions of euros.
As a normal practice, the commission did not disclose the names of those companies targeted, but Germany-based Infineon Technologies and Switzerland-based ST Microelectronics said they had been visited.
The commission said the fact that it carried out such inspections does not mean that the companies are guilty of anti-competitive behavior, nor does it prejudge the outcome of the investigation itself.
There is no strict deadline to complete cartel inquiries.
Source:Xinhua
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