Competition record
Nexans
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Nexans is a French maker of high-voltage power cable, including lines that run underground and under the sea. The European Commission fined Nexans in a cartel that allocated those projects with Prysmian and NKT.
Overview
Nexans manufactures cable in France and elsewhere, from building wire up to the high-voltage lines that move electricity between grids. The cartel product is the top of that range: underground and submarine projects, where the supplier designs, makes, and often installs a link that a grid operator cannot easily rebid next year.
The Commission found that Nexans, Prysmian, and NKT allocated those projects. Allocation means the rivals decided which company would take which job instead of fighting the tender. A French cable maker, an Italian group, and a Danish firm were dividing work that public utilities and offshore connections put out to bid.
The library status is fined. This profile states no euro amount, for Nexans or for the cartel. The buyer is a transmission company or a project developer. The cost lands in the network, and then in the bill of whoever pays for the grid.
Competition footprint
High-voltage projects are few, large, and visible, which is why an allocation scheme has a paper trail of who bid and who won.
Submarine and underground links have a short list of firms that can actually deliver them.
Nexans' role in the decision is as one of the cable makers that divided that project list.
Consumer & business angle
Grid operators buying a link thought they were comparing independent turnkey offers.
Electricity customers pay the network cost over many years, long after the tender closed.
What to watch
- Damages claims by utilities that bought high-voltage links during the cartel period.
- Tender rules for new subsea cables, where the same three corporate names still appear on bidder lists.
Markets
high-voltage power cable · submarine cable · power cables · grid infrastructure · offshore wind
Also known as: nexans sa