European inspectors raid Pilkington

PILKINGTON is one of several European glass manufacturers to be raided this week by cartel-busting European Commission inspectors. The EC has reason to believe the glass makers have been fixing prices and unfairly sharing out customers.

Ian Lough, finance director of St Helens-based Pilkington, said the swoops earlier this week were 'a bolt from the blue, a total surprise'.

Other glass makers caught up in the probe include St Gobain of France and the European arm of Asahi of Japan.

The £10bn European glass market is dominated by a handful of giants. If found guilty, companies face fines of up to 10% of revenues although the EC has never imposed penalties of more than 2%-3%.

Recent scalps for the EC's competition police include BPB, fined for its part in rigging the plasterboard market in 2002, and Microsoft, stung for €497m last year for abusing the 'virtual monopoly' of its Windows operating system.

Lough said: 'It's a case of seeing what - if anything - they find.'