voestalpine AG reaction to today’s announcement by the German Bundeskartellamt on the subject of the “Quarto plate cartel”

The origins of the events lie in the distant past and were related to specific price supplements as well as alloy and scrap surcharges on German sales of certain product groups of quarto plates, i.e., heavy plates not manufactured as hot-rolled strip. The longstanding practice had been to add these price supplements and surcharges to the base price negotiated with the individual customer, which resulted in the offer price. Subsequent to a change in pricing systems at voestalpine Grobblech, these price supplements and surcharges had already been discontinued many years ago. Furthermore, voestalpine Grobblech had never applied scrap surcharges, and alloy surcharges only in a few individual cases. In the past the standardized system of surcharges was often in line with customers’ requests.

Former and current members of the Management Board of voestalpine AG were neither involved in this matter and nor were they aware of it. As part of the process of assessing the facts, voestalpine has already reduced its association memberships to the minimum necessary and established restrictive regulations for participating in association meetings and events.