Five Romanian dairy producers, including market leaders Albalact and Dorna, both controlled by French group Lactalis, have been sanctioned by the Competition Council with fines totaling EUR 1.9 million.

The five companies apparently rigged tenders in the state’s ‘Bagel and Milk’ program for distributing bagles and dairy products to school students in Romania.

According to the Competition Council, the five companies have made a deal not to compete against each other in the tenders organized by local authorities in several counties to select the dairy product suppliers for local schools.

Albalact and Simultan, two of the investigated producers admitted the charges and got lower fines. Albalact was fined some EUR 1.1 million. Simultan will pay a EUR 490,000 fine, and Dorna got a EUR 226,000 fine. The other two producers, Lacta and Deltalact, got lower fines.

editor@romania-insider.com