The monetary penalty proceedings by the German Federal Cartel Office (Bundeskartellamt) relating to voestalpine and relative to deliveries of rails and railway superstructure material to Deutsche Bahn, was concluded about one year ago. On July 23, 2013, the German Federal Cartel Office also concluded the still unresolved portion of the proceedings concerning the private market by issuing an official notice of the fine. The portion of the proceedings relative to the private market concerns deliveries of rails and railway superstructure material to municipal mass transit agencies as well as industrial customers and construction companies.
In this portion of the proceedings, a fine in the amount of EUR 6.4 million was imposed on voestalpine for deliveries of turnouts to customers in Germany. Otherwise, voestalpine’s status of cooperating witness was also confirmed for this portion of the proceedings. This means that the monetary penalty proceedings by the German Federal Cartel Office in connection with the so-called “rail cartel” are now concluded in their entirety. Up to July 23, 2013, fines totaling EUR 232.1 million have been levied by the German Federal Cartel Office in the antitrust proceedings relative to railway superstructure material, of which EUR 14.9 million were levied against companies belonging to the voestalpine Group.
As far as claims for compensatory damages for deliveries by the cartel are concerned, claims by Deutsche Bahn for direct deliveries of rails by voestalpine were resolved in May 2013 by way of payment of damages. Claims for compensatory damages for indirect deliveries of rails to Deutsche Bahn as well as deliveries to municipal mass transit agencies and other private market customers are still unresolved.
The provisions recognized for the antitrust proceedings and associated actions and costs as well as for the closure of TSTG Schienen Technik GmbH & Co KG in the annual financial statements 2012/13 in the amount of EUR 204.4 million were mainly reduced by the amount paid to compensate Deutsche Bahn for direct rail deliveries as of June 30, 2013. The remaining provisions are still considered to be appropriate.