Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls is known for building systems: controls and equipment that run heating, cooling, and other services in commercial buildings. It also owned a large automotive battery business, the lead-acid starter-battery operation later associated with Clarios. Batteries are why the company sat in a recycling cartel. Building controls are the rest of the firm.

Recyclers of scrap lead-acid batteries fixed the prices they paid collectors. In February 2017 the Commission fined that cartel about €68 million. Johnson Controls received full leniency immunity because it revealed the arrangement. Campine and Eco-Bat are recyclers recorded on the fined side. Immunity means this firm was not fined for the scrap cartel.

The library status of the case is still fined, because the cartel was established and other companies paid. This profile's point about Johnson Controls is the immunity, not a penalty. The €68 million is the total imposed on the firms that did not have full immunity.

Full leniency immunity is the outcome for this company in the scrap case.

The purchase-price cartel concerned what recyclers paid for used car batteries.

Building controls are a separate market from the battery scrap the case is about.

Scrap collectors were paid less because the recyclers coordinated the buying price.

Building owners who buy Johnson Controls systems are customers of a different business line.