Nine US cement companies accused of price fixing

A price-fixing lawsuit filed in Florida accuses Titan America, Holcim, Lafarge, Cemex, and others of working together to set cement prices.

{reg}The Florida federal court received a class-action lawsuit concerning nine cement companies accused of inflating prices for nine years. Star News Online reports the cement companies ÔÇ£conspired in a price-fixing scheme to boost the price of cement and concrete and eliminate competition in Florida.ÔÇØ Titan , Cemex Corp. Florida Rock Industries Inc., Holcim Inc., Lafarge North America Inc., Lehigh Cement Co., Oldcastle Materials, Suwannee American Cement LLC and Votorantim Cimentos North America Inc have all been listed in the suit.

The lawsuit goes on to specify that the companies allegedly ÔÇ£agreed to inflate prices by coordinating the level and timing of price increases for cement and concrete from at least January 2000 until the present.ÔÇØ Furthermore, the companies are accused of balancing the client lists to eliminate competition among the group. More specifically, cement companies made the exact same increase in concrete and cement prices during 2008.

In fact, according to the lawsuit, ÔÇ£the defendants didn't make the same discounts available to each other's customers, and each company offered discounts only to customers in specific geographic regions.....ÔÇØ Plaintiffs will be able to access records for every company to further prove their claims.{reg}