Europan Union fines E.on and GDF Suez 1bn for collusion

UTILITY giants E.On and Gaz De France (GDF) Suez were fined a total of almost £1bn by the European Commission’s competition regulators yesterday, who said the pair had divided up gas markets and deprived customers of price competition.

Germany’s E.On and France’s GDF Suez were fined €553m (£477m) each, after it emerged that they had agreed in 1975 not to compete with each other when they began to import gas through a Russian pipeline.

“The Commission has no alternative but to impose high fines,” it said.

“They maintained the market-sharing agreement after European gas markets were liberalised, and only abandoned it definitely in 2005,” it added.

The Commission said it hoped the fine would send a message to energy incumbents that anti-competitive behaviour would not be tolerated.

E.On has said the alleged anti-competitive practices referred to agreements that had expired in 2004, while GDF Suez head Gerard Mestrallet said the group would appeal against any fine imposed by the Commission.

E.on is one of the biggest electricity generators in the UK.