The European Commission on Tuesday revealed<\/a> that the inspections are part of an effort to determine whether wood pulp producers have violated antitrust rules prohibiting cartels and restrictive business practices. It underlined that as unannounced inspections are \u201ca preliminary step\u201d into suspected anti-competitive practices, the carrying out of such inspections does not signify that the companies are guilty of any violations.<\/p>\n Each of the Finnish companies targeted holds a roughly four-per-cent share of the global pulp market, according to data compiled by Afry.<\/p>\n The antitrust officials were accompanied by their counterparts from national antitrust authorities for the inspections. Timo Mattila<\/strong>, the head of the competition unit at the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (KKV), told<\/a> Helsingin Sanomat on Tuesday that the European Commission usually utilises national authorities in such efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cOur duty is to assist in the commission\u2019s investigation. The inspections require, among other things, knowledge of the local language and help with a number of practical things,\u201d he said, declining to speculate on the impetus for the inspections.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t comment on that, and I don\u2019t even know all the details because we\u2019re truly involved in an assisting role.\u201d<\/p>\n Petri Kuoppam\u00e4ki<\/strong>, a professor of corporate law at Aalto University, said the European Commission\u2019s investigations into suspected anti-competitive practices are usually prompted by a denunciation from one of the participating companies. Antitrust laws state that a company that denounces a cartel may be exempt from penalty payments.<\/p>\n It would be practically impossible for antitrust authorities to unearth evidence of price co-operation between large corporations without a denunciation.<\/p>\n The objective of the inspections is to find incriminatory evidence of price co-operation, such as e-mails, meeting memos or internal memos detailing such illegal activity.<\/p>\n \u201cI won\u2019t comment specifically on this case, but generally speaking the officials carrying out the inspections must know pretty precisely whose office and computers they should start with in search of evidence,\u201d Kuoppam\u00e4ki said to Helsingin Sanomat.<\/p>\n He also reminded that the inspections could not be carried out without justified suspicion. It could arise not only from a denunciation, but also from observations made by a client about the activities of sellers.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t carry out an inspection like this just in case, but you must have concrete suspicions,\u201d he clarified<\/a>, again on a general level, to YLE.<\/p>\n Aleksi Teivainen \u2013 HT<\/p>\n<\/section>\n <\/p>\n