Austria-based steelmaker voestalpine has announced that it has become the first company to reach an agreement with German national rail operator Deutsche Bahn, regarding the German rail steel cartel. Accordingly, voestalpine has agreed to pay damages in high double-digit millions and has been granted approval for direct deliveries of rails to Deutsche Bahn.
According to voestalpine's statement, the associated investigative proceeding by the German Federal Cartel Office largely confirmed voestalpine's status of cooperating witness. Voestalpine said that the portion of the proceedings before the German Federal Cartel Office that is relative to the private market, which includes, but is not limited, to deliveries to mass transit and municipal services, remains unresolved.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in July 2011 the German authorities started to investigate up to 10 steel and rail companies for operating an illegal cartel for at least a decade to fix the price of rails. German steel giant ThyssenKrupp was also involved in the investigations and in July 2012 the Federal Cartel Office imposed a fine of €103 million on its Essen-based subsidiary ThyssenKrupp GfT Gleistechnik GmbH in the rail cartel case.