Competition record
Campine
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Campine is a metals recycler that buys scrap, including lead from old car batteries. It is a fined party in the EU cartel that fixed purchase prices for that scrap.
Overview
Campine is a Belgian recycler. It buys scrap lead and other metals and processes them back into usable material. Scrap lead-acid car batteries are a major feed for that business. Garages and small collectors are the people who gather the batteries and sell them to a recycler.
In February 2017 the European Commission fined a cartel that fixed the purchase prices of those scrap batteries, about €68 million in total. The recyclers coordinated what they would pay the collectors, pushing the buying price down. Campine is one of the recyclers on the fined side of the library file.
Johnson Controls received full immunity for revealing the cartel. Campine did not. The library status of the case is fined. Eco-Bat is another recycler in the same decision.
Competition footprint
The fixed price is a purchase price, so the harm is upstream, on the collector who sells scrap.
The Commission total is about €68 million for the decision, not a figure assigned here to Campine alone.
Immunity in this case went to Johnson Controls, the company that disclosed the arrangement.
Consumer & business angle
Small scrap collectors and garages received less for used batteries.
Other battery recyclers were the buyers who agreed the purchase prices.
What to watch
- Damages claims by scrap collectors who sold batteries into the cartel.
- Purchase-price coordination in other recycling markets, where the victim is the seller of scrap.
Markets
lead recycling · battery scrap · battery recycling · scrap collection · circular economy · SME victims of cartels
Also known as: campine