A whopping 302 million euros ($413.74 million) fine is providing a stern reminder to private equity firms about antitrust risks, according to a recent update from Hogan Lovells. Last week, the European Commission fined the producers of underground and submarine high-voltage power cables for participation in a market and customer-sharing cartel.
The folks at Hogan Lovells are calling the decision remarkable, “since it also held the investment company Goldman Sachs liable for a fine of 37 million euros as the former owner” of one of the participants in the cartel, and they say that although holding parent companies liable isn’t new, usually they’re industrial owners, not private equity houses. “Parental liability can be triggered even if the parent had no involvement or awareness of the breach and did not in any way encourage the subsidiary to commit it,” they explain.
