18/05/2015
International Small Business Alliance
Copy of our Press Release
Press Release: Sunday Business Post 17 May 2015
CRH raided in Competition Probe:
ISBA notes a report carried by the Sunday Business Post with regard to an apparent raid by the Competition Authority [now Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) on certain premises owned by CRH Plc. The report states that the competition investigation relates to the €50m bagged cement market.
This market is distinctly removed from the core vertically integrated markets, e.g. bulk cement, readymix concrete, concrete products, aggregates, asphalt, ground limestone and superfines for asphalt, animal feedstuffs and fertilizer. It has always been the position of ISBA that serious competition issues arise in these markets. In contrast to the bagged cement market (€50m), the construction materials and agri supply sectors accounted for billions of euro throughout the boom years.
While an investigation into the bagged cement market is welcomed by ISBA as there are substantial grounds that justify such action, ISBA has serious concerns with regard to the motives of the CCPC and believes that an investigation into the bagged cement market is merely a decoy to cover the CCPC’s ongoing failure to act against the aforementioned vertically integrated construction materials and agricultural supply sector.
ISBA has for decades, highlighted serious structural and behavioral patterns in the CRH Plc led sector. Findings supporting ISBA’s position have been made by the European Commission, European Court of First Instance and European Court of Justice. Recent activities in the market concerning CRH Plc, Readymix Plc (now Cemex) and Kilsaran Concrete have been explicitly raised with CCPC but these and other complaints have systematically been ignored.
ISBA believes that this decoy has been created to deflect increasing attention away from the CCPC’s abysmal enforcement record over the past 24 years and to cover Government’s outright failure to enforce Articles 101 and 102 TFEU. As is typical with Irish Corporate Investigations, this decoy will also assist in kicking the can down the road.
Unless and until a comprehensive investigation takes place into the structures and behavior of the sector, Irish citizens and the exchequer are not being served well by CCPT [CCPT has previously estimated that anti-competitive practices in Ireland are costing the economy €4bn per annum equivalent to €2,400 per household].
The present reported investigation has striking similarities to the Moriarty Tribunal’s highly controversial on / off investigation into CRH Plc / Charles Haughey / Des Traynor. Eventually, only one tiny piece of the CRH Plc jigsaw was reviewed by the Tribunal, i.e. the private sale by the State of Glen Ding Wood (sand and gravel reserves) to CRH Plc in which no effective investigation was carried out and therefore no meaningful conclusion was or could have been reached.
Ends.
Note: Some supporting correspondence as follows:
1] Parr Global exclusive on “Defunct Concrete Company to take case against [Irish] State, April 20th 2015.
2] ISBA to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern & Tánaiste Mary Harney, March 16th 2006.
3] ISBA to Moriarty Tribunal, April 12th 2006
4] ISBA to Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, December 4th 2014
Enquiries to Seamus F. Maye at ISBA (See Contact Details Below)
