Recylex

Recylex recycles lead. A large input is the dead lead-acid battery that comes off a car: garages and small collectors gather scrap and sell it to a recycler, who pays a purchase price and recovers the metal. Recylex is one of those recyclers. The cartel was about that purchase price.

In February 2017 the Commission fined a battery-scrap cartel about €68 million in total. The companies in the matter include Recylex, Campine, Eco-Bat, and Johnson Controls. Johnson Controls had immunity for revealing the arrangement. Recylex did not. Recylex is among the recyclers the decision fined. Coordinating the price paid to scrap collectors is a buyers' cartel. It pushes the collector's revenue down.

The about €68 million figure is the case total. Johnson Controls had the immunity, and Recylex was fined. The businesses on the other side were often small: a garage with a pile of old batteries, or a collector who drives a route.

The coordinated price is the price recyclers paid for scrap batteries, not the price of a new battery on a forecourt.

February 2017 is the decision, and about €68 million is the total.

Johnson Controls held the immunity. Recylex was fined.

A scrap collector negotiating with Recylex was selling into a market where the big buyers had aligned what they would pay.

Garages that treat old batteries as a small credit on a service invoice felt the purchase price as less money back.