China has fined six baby milk formula companies a total of 670 million yuan (US$108 million) for price-fixing, following an anti-trust investigation launched in early July, the country's top economic planner announced Wednesday morning.
The six companies are Fonterra, Mead Johnson, Dumex, Abbott, Friesland and Biostime, according the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).
Biostime was fined 163 million yuan, or 6 percent of its sales revenue in 2012, as it "seriously violated the anti-monopoly law and failed to actively take corrective action," said Xu Kunlin, chief of the Price Department of the NDRC, on Wednesday.
Mead Johnson was fined 204 million yuan, or 4 percent of its revenue last year, because it "did not actively cooperate with the investigation but did take active self-rectification measures," said Xu.
Dumex, Abbott, Friesland and Fonterra each received a fine equal to 3 percent of their 2012 revenue. They were fined 172 million yuan, 77 million yuan, 48 million yuan and 4 million yuan, respectively.
According to Xu, these four companies cooperated in the probe and actively moved to correct their improper practices.
Three other companies, including Wyeth, Beingmate and Meiji, were exempt from punishment, because they cooperated with the government investigation, provided important evidence and actively took self-rectification measures, said Xu.
NDRC's investigation into these nine baby formula makers were initially launched in March this year. During the investigation, the authorities found that involved companies set minimum resale prices for distributors. Distributors will face punishment if they sold their products at a lower price.
