European Union: EU General Court Dismisses Guardian

On 27 September 2012, the EU General Court ("GC") issued its judgment on the appeal brought by Guardian Industries Corp and Guardian Europe Sarl ("Guardian") against a Commission decision fining them a total of € 148 million for their participation in a cartel in the flat glass sector from 20 April 2004 to 22 February 2005. The GC upheld the fine imposed on Guardian and ruled that the appeal should be dismissed in its entirety.

In its November 2007 decision, the Commission imposed fines totalling approximately € 487 million on four corporate groups, namely Asahi, Guardian, Pilkington, and Saint-Gobain, for their participation in the cartel. The Commission found that the companies had participated in a single and continuous infringement of Article 101 TFEU, which covered the territory of the EEA and consisted in the fixing of price increases, minimum prices, target prices, price freezing and other commercial conditions in respect of sales to independent customers of four categories of flat glass products used in the building industry, as well as in the exchange of commercially sensitive information.

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