Otis

Otis installs elevators and escalators and then services them. A new lift in an office tower, a hospital, or a station is a tender. The maintenance contract that follows can run for decades, because the parts and the software sit with the company that put the machine in. Otis is now part of Otis Worldwide. The cartel decision is about that elevator business.

In 2007 the Commission fined Otis, Kone, Schindler, and Thyssenkrupp about €992 million. The finding was market division and bid rigging: rivals split territories and customers, and they coordinated bids so that a building project saw the appearance of competition. Kone received the leniency reduction. Otis was fined as a participant.

This profile does not state Otis's own euro figure. The about €992 million number is the cartel total. Building owners, public authorities, and later the tenants who pay service charges are the people on the other side of a rigged lift tender.

New installation tenders and the later maintenance contracts are one commercial relationship.

Market division carved up countries and customers among Otis, Kone, Schindler, and Thyssenkrupp.

The leniency reduction in this case went to Kone. The 2007 total is about €992 million.

A developer who takes the low bid on a tower has locked in a service relationship that outlasts the construction loan.

Residents and office tenants pay for that lock-in through rent and service charges, years after the tender.