6 Nov, 2008 - The multi-million euro fine imposed on Archer Daniels Midlands (ADM) for breaching European anti-trust laws on the price fixing of citric acid should be cut, said a legal opinion delivered yesterday to Europe's highest court.
A court adviser examining the case said the original EUR 36.39 million penalty should be reduced to EUR29.4 million.
The call came after the European Commission fined five companies more than EUR 135 million for their role in running a global citric acid cartel that fixed prices, allocated sales quotas and exchanged customer information between 1991 and 1995.
ADM, which was involved in the cartel, had appealed to the Court of First Instance (CFI) in 2006 in a bid to reverse the decision. The appeal was unsuccessful after CFI rejected much of ADM’s case, leaving the fine unaltered.
The US agribusiness giant then made a further appeal to the Court of Justice on the grounds the CFI judgement had made a number of legal errors in its findings.
Yesterday, an adviser to the Court of Justice called for the CFI ruling to be partially set aside but for the rest of the appeal to be rejected. The opinion of the advisor is not binding on the court’s judges but about 80% of final rulings do follow the recommendations laid down by advisors.