The European Fee has knowledgeable a number of firms energetic within the artificial turf sector of its preliminary view that they’ve breached EU antitrust guidelines by colluding to distort competitors in artificial turf for sports activities pitches within the Netherlands and Germany.
If the Fee’s preliminary view is confirmed, the businesses’ behaviour would quantity to 2 cartels affecting every nation respectively, violating Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), which prohibits anticompetitive agreements and different restrictive enterprise practices.
The sending of Statements of Objections doesn’t prejudge the end result of the investigations.
Assertion of Objections regarding the Netherlands
The Fee has preliminary issues that Dutch-based OranjewoudDutch-based TenCate Grassin addition to Belgian-based Sports activities & Leisure Groupall producers and installers of artificial turf, have been coordinating their business conduct to limit competitors within the artificial turf sector within the Netherlands since 2019, after they established a recycling firm within the Netherlands, GBN-AGR (as of December 2024, AGR).
GBN-AGR was a subsidiary of Oranjewoud, through which TenCate and Sports activities & Leisure Group acquired minority stakes. The Comission is anxious that the businesses agreed to not compete with GBN-AGR in recycling, to completely use GBN-AGR’s recycling companies and to repair GBN-AGR’s pricing in a manner that avoids competitors between them whereas disadvantaging third events. The Fee is anxious that the businesses did this so as to:
- safe a powerful place for GBN‑AGR within the recycling market and monopolizes that market over time by excluding opponents,
- preserve their sturdy place within the adjoining marketplace for the set up and alternative of artificial turf,
- exclude opponents on the upstream marketplace for the availability of artificial turf.
Moreover, the businesses are suspected of getting entered into an extra settlement a 12 months after establishing GBN-AGR, to marginalise the suppliers of sustainable disposal companies that competed with GBN-ACR’s recycling companies, thereby threatening the expansion of GBN-AGR.
The Assertion of Objections can also be addressed to Domo Sports activities Grass Nederlandwhich was spun off from Sports activities & Leisure Group right into a self‑standing set up enterprise in Might 2025.
Assertion of Objections regarding Germany
The Fee has preliminary issues that, between 2020 and 2023, Oranjewoud and Germany-based Sport Group colluded on the recycling of artificial turf for sports activities. Throughout that point, Oranjewoud explored choices for the enlargement of GBN-AGR into different Member States, together with Germany, whereas Sport Group was engaged on a recycling answer and was within the strategy of establishing its devoted subsidiary FormaTurf.
The Fee is anxious that, whereas discussing a possible cooperation for the German market, together with a doable cross-acquisition of minority shareholdings in GBN-AGR and FormaTurf, which finally didn’t happen, Oranjewoud and Sport Group engaged in anticompetitive conduct.
Specifically, the Fee is anxious that as a part of these discussions, Oranjewoud and Sport Group exchanged confidential and strategic data, which lined present and future costs and manufacturing capacities. This was finished with none safeguards in place that may restrict the change to what could possibly be thought-about obligatory within the context of discussions pertaining to the businesses’ envisaged cooperation or cross-acquisition. Additional, the Fee is anxious that in a subsequent a part of these discussions, the 2 firms mounted the primary value ingredient for the recycling of end-of-life artificial turf in Germany, which is referred to within the trade as a ‘gate payment’.
Artificial turf for sports activities pitches
Artificial turf for sports activities pitches imitates the looks of pure grass and is usually used for hockey and soccer pitches. Clients embrace municipalities and different public our bodies, which can usually fee an set up or a alternative of a sports activities pitch via a young course of.
In tenders for replacements, an installer is not going to solely supply and lay out a brand new artificial turf pitch, however may even take away and eliminate the eliminated turf. The price of this disposal is a crucial parameter of competitors in such tenders.
In recent times, the EU’s artificial turf trade has been steadily transferring away from extremely polluting disposal strategies – akin to landfilling and incineration – in direction of recycling end-of-life pitches as a substitute. The recycling of artificial turf is a rising market and is making the trade extra round.
Background
In June 2023the Fee carried out unannounced inspections on the premises of firms energetic within the artificial turf trade in a number of member states.
A Assertion of Objections is a proper step in Fee’s investigations into suspected violations of EU antitrust guidelines. The Fee informs the events involved in writing of the objections raised towards them. The events can then study the paperwork within the Fee’s investigation file, reply in writing and request an oral listening to to current their views on the case earlier than representatives of the Fee and nationwide competitors authorities.
If the Fee concludes, after the events have exercised their rights of defence, that there’s ample proof of an infringement, it will probably undertake a call prohibiting the conduct and imposing a positive of as much as 10% of an organization’s annual worldwide turnover. The Fee may impose on the corporate any cures that are proportionate to carry the infringement successfully to an finish.
There isn’t any authorized deadline for the Fee to finish antitrust inquiries into anticompetitive conduct. The length of an antitrust investigation relies on numerous components, together with the complexity of the case, the extent to which the businesses involved cooperate with the Fee and the events’ train of the rights of defence.
Extra data shall be made accessible underneath the case numbers AT.40957 (the Netherlands) and AT.40956 (Germany) and within the public case register on the Fee’s competitors web site.
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