Division (11)

Within the category of very serious infringements, the Commission may apply differential treatment to the undertakings concerned in order to take account of their effective economic capacity to cause significant damage to competition and in order to set the fine at a level which ensures it has sufficient deterrent effect. This is particularly necessary where, as in the present case, there is considerable disparity between the sizes of the undertakings which participated in the infringement. To this end the Decision divides the companies into three groups on the basis of their respective market shares based on turnover from sales of the product on the four markets concerned in the last complete year of the infringement, i.e. 1997: the first group comprises BPB with a market share of some [40-45] %; the second group comprises Knauf and Lafarge with market shares of some [25-30] % and [20-25] % respectively; and the third group comprises Gyproc with a market share of some [7-10] %.