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Competition watchdog fines roofing firms £9m
The competition watchdog, the Competition and Markets Authority, has fined two of the UK’s largest suppliers of rolled lead more than £9m for breaking competition law.
Following an investigation into suspected cartel conduct,
the CMA found that Hertfordshire-based firms, Associated Lead Mills Ltd (ALM)
and H.J. Enthoven Ltd (trading as BLM British Lead), had broken the law by
entering into anticompetitive arrangements.
Both companies admitted their roles in the illegal cartel
earlier this year and now face fines of £1.5m and £8m respectively.
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Previously, the CMA had provisionally found that a third
company, Calder Industrial Materials Ltd, had become involved at a later stage
in one of the arrangements, but the CMA has now determined that there are no
grounds for action and it has closed its investigation into this company.
ALM and BLM are two of the largest players in the rolled
lead market, which is mainly used for roofing.
The four anticompetitive arrangements took place between
October 2015 and April 2017 and included colluding on prices, sharing the
rolled lead market by arranging not to target certain customers, and arranging
not to supply a new business because it risked disrupting the firms’ existing
customer relationships. Each of the arrangements also included exchanges of
commercially sensitive information.
Michael Grenfell, executive director of enforcement at the
CMA, said: “These companies knowingly entered into illegal arrangements restricting
competition between them. Such anticompetitive arrangements tend to inflate
prices and cheat customers out of a fair deal. The CMA does not tolerate such
behaviour.
“Construction is a sector firmly under our spotlight and if
businesses break the law by entering into anticompetitive arrangements, they
run the risk of large fines.”
The January/February 2026 issue of Construction Management magazine is now available to read in digital format.
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