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Woolworths fined $9m in laundry case

Woolworths Supermarket AustraliaWoolworths has been hit with the biggest penalty of its kind in action brought by the competition watchdog.

The supermarket giant has been fined $9 million over its involvement in cartel behaviour among Australia’s biggest laundry detergent suppliers.

This came two months after Colgate-Palmolive was fined $18 million over a scheme with other manufacturers to control the supply and price of detergent.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims said the federal court had ordered penalties totalling $9 million following admission by Woolworths that it was knowingly concerned in an anti-competitive understanding between laundry detergent manufacturers.

“This penalty is the largest the ACCC has obtained against a party that was an accessory to competition law breaches by being knowingly concerned in anticompetitive conduct,” Sims said.

Federal court Justice Jayne Jagot said the penalty “reflects the objective seriousness of the contraventions” of competition and consumer laws.

The ACCC took federal court action in 2013 alleging that detergent makers Colgate-Palmolive, PZ Cussons and Unilever set up cartel arrangements to stop supplying standard concentrate laundry detergents in early 2009 and to supply only ultra concentrates.

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