Coats' bid to cut cartel fine fails

Guinness Peat Group-owned threads business Coats lost a final bid at the European Union's top court to reduce EU cartel fines levied against it for fixing prices of sewing needles.

The European Court of Justice in an order posted on its website yesterday rejected the company's claim "as clearly inadmissible" and "unfounded".

Coats argued that a lower EU court in its decision last year to reduce the company's fine to ¬20 million ($27 million) from ¬30 million didn't put enough weight on the fact that the company's role in the cartel "was not active but merely passive".

"It cannot be accepted that the Court of First Instance failed to give due effect to its findings in relation to Coats' less active role" because the lower EU court did use them "to justify a reduction of the fine," the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice ruled.

The European Commission accused Coats, William Prym GmbH and Entaco of operating a cartel to divide the haberdashery market from 1994 until 1999. Coats, William Prym and Entaco were Europe's main needle suppliers in a market that was worth more than ¬1 billion a year.

- BLOOMBERG