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German rail company Deutsche Bahn said yesterday that it is launching a multimillion-euro lawsuit against major steel manufacturers over illegal price fixing.
Deutsche Bahn board member Gerd Becht said the company would sue nine unnamed companies, four of them German, for a figure in the “hundreds of millions of euros” range.
Mr Becht complained that although the companies had co-operated with European competition authorities, cartel members still rejected any settlement.
“We’re not going to take it any more,” he said.
Deutsche Bahn claims that price fixing meant it had bought 49 million railway parts made of steel and concrete over the course of 18 years at a price inflated by 20 to 30 per cent.
The European Commission fined 17 steel producers a total of €518m (£430m) in 2010 for running a price-fixing cartel.
The commission said the companies had colluded for 18 years to fix prices.
