The Canadian divisions of Nestle, Mars, Hershey and other candy companies teamed up in a price-fixing scheme in the country's C$2 billion (US$2 billion) chocolate bar industry, according to court documents.
The documents unsealed by an Ottawa judge on Friday allege that senior executives at Hershey Canada Inc, Mars Canada Inc and Nestle Canada Inc met secretly at coffee shops, restaurants and conventions to set prices.
The conspiracy was led by major food distributor ITWAL Ltd, the documents said.
In one case, the chief executive officer of Nestle Canada handed envelopes stuffed with pricing information to a competitor, instructing the person not to be seen picking up material in his office, the documents say.
The allegations come from two search warrants obtained by Canada's federal Competition Bureau authorizing officials to seize thousands of corporate documents and computer files from Hershey, Mars, Nestle and ITWAL.
The seizure was part of an investigation focused on illegal price-fixing in chocolate products, but could expand to other types of candy depending on what was uncovered, John Pecman, the bureau's assistant deputy commissioner, said at the time.
Representatives of Canada's Hershey, Cadbury and Nestle confirmed on Nov. 28 that the companies were served papers and were cooperating with the investigation. Officials from the chocolate companies could not be reached for comment on Saturday.
According to court documents, more than 30 agents were involved in the investigation of price-fixing, a practice that allegedly began in February 2002 and continued until last month.
Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday that the bureau alleged that the collusion was initially coordinated by ITWAL. According to the court documents, ITWAL worked with the chocolate companies to force retailers to stop cutting prices for chocolate bars, which usually sell for about C$1. Stores that did not comply were cut off, the documents alleged.
None of the allegations have been proven.
Canadians buy about C$2.3 billion in chocolate and candy every year, according to the Confectionery Manufacturers Association of Canada. Cadbury Adams Canada Inc, Nestle, Hershey and Mars control two-thirds of the chocolate market in Canada and make popular products such as Kit Kat, Oh Henry! and Snickers.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
RSS