The other three penalised were Abbott Laboratories, Dutch dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina and Hong Kong-listed Biostime International Holdings, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said on Wednesday.
The fines, which follow a four-month antitrust probe by the NDRC, coincide with separate pricing investigations into 60 foreign and local pharmaceutical firms as well as companies involved in gold trading. Those probes have yet to conclude.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the fines were a record for China, although it did not elaborate.
“These are really significant fines for China, which has typically not issued large fines for antitrust violations,” said Peter Wang, an antitrust expert and Shanghai-based partner for law firm Jones Day.
Foreign infant formula is coveted in the world's second biggest economy, where public trust was damaged by a 2008 scandal in which six infants died and thousands became ill after drinking milk tainted with the toxic industrial compound melamine.
Foreign brands account for about half of total sales and can sell for more than double the price of local formula. The infant milk market in China is set to grow to US$25 billion by 2017 from US$12.4 billion in 2012, according to data from Euromonitor.
The NDRC said in a statement the fines were for restricting competition, setting curbs on minimum prices for distributors and for using a variety of methods to disrupt market order.
It fined U.S.-based Mead Johnson 203.8 million yuan (US$33.29 million); French food group Danone 172 million yuan; Biostime 162.9 million yuan; Abbott 77 million yuan; FrieslandCampina 48 million yuan and Fonterra 4 million yuan.
All of the companies said they would not contest the penalties.
Swiss giant Nestle, Japan's Meiji Holdings and Zhejiang Beingmate Scientific Technology Industry and Trade Co. Ltd. were not punished because “they cooperated with the investigation, provided important evidence and carried out active self-rectification,” Xinhua quoted Xu Kunlin, the head of the NDRC's price department, as saying.
Xu said the probe began in March, but was only made public in early July. After the NDRC probe was announced, a number of companies, including Mead Johnson, Danone and Nestle, cut prices on their baby formula in China by up to 20 percent.
Chinese firm Biostime was fined the equivalent of 6 percent of its 2012 China sales, the highest of those penalized, because it “seriously violated the anti-monopoly law and failed to actively take corrective action,” Xu said. Biostime imports most of its products.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/mnrfno2
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