The High Court of Justice and Causation decided on Wednesday that the construction materials producer Carpatcement doesn't have to pay the 9 million euros fine the Competition Council applied in 2005.

At the time, the competition regulation institutions decided to fine Lafarge, Carpatcement and Holcim with a total of some 60 million euros, arguing that the three major producers formed a cartel on the Romanian market. Except for Carpatcement, the companies paid the fines without challenging the decisions in court.

Bogdan Arnautu, PR responsible for Carpatcement, declared for HotNews.ro that "the entire juridical action of our company was motivated by the fact that the invoked understanding with our competitors was not real".

"Our purpose was to prove our innocence, and this is what happened in court today", said Arnautu.

The Competition Council verified and surveyed the market between 2000 and 2004 and decided that the three companies acted together in order to fix the cement price at their will.