OTTAWA - The makers of Aspirin have been fined more than $3.6 million after pleading guilty to three international price-fixing conspiracies in the rubber and chemicals industry.
The federal Competition Bureau says Bayer AG was fined $2.9 million for its part in a rubber chemicals conspiracy and $400,000 for its role in a conspiracy to fix the price of nitrile rubber.
Nitrile rubber is a synthetic used in hoses, gaskets, seals, adhesives, footwear, construction materials and conveyor belts.
Bayer Corp., a wholly owned U.S. subsidiary of Bayer AG, was fined $345,000 for participating in a conspiracy to fix the price of aliphatic polyester polyols made from adipic acid.
Aliphatic polyester polyols are used in an array of consumer products including furniture, synthetic leather and surface coatings.
Bayer pleaded guilty in the Federal Court of Canada to violating part of the Competition Act which prohibits agreements between competitors to fix prices or share markets that results in an undue lessening of competition in Canada.
