French poultry sector suspected of price collusion

The French competition authority Autorité de la concurrence has investigated over 30 companies in the poultry and poultry meat sector for illegal price arrangements.

The agency will within a few days announce the fines it has imposed on the companies including LDC, Duc and Doux, the Sunday newspaper Journal du Dimanche has reported.

According to the paper, the companies had over a hundred meetings in the years 2000 and 2007 to discuss pricing and share market information about chicken, turkey, duck and also rabbit. The price and other arrangements involved both the retail and the catering market.

The Authorité de la Concurrence started its investigation over 4 years ago. Since then, a number of companies involved have disappeared or have been taken over by other companies. The agency can theoretically impose fines of 10% of the turnover of each company but the actual fines will probably be lower since none of the companies involved have objected to the investigation, the Journal du Dimanche says.