Israeli bakers on price-fixing charges
Several Israeli bakery chains have been issued charge sheets by the Israel Antitrust Authority over accusations that they were collaboratively involved in the price fixing of bread products and anti-competition activities.
National chains including Angel, Berman, Ahdut, Dganit Ein Bar are among the firms that have been summoned to the Jerusalem District Court.
Executives at the bakeries are accused of dividing the customer base equally among hem and collaboratively working to raise the price of plain white bread and challa (a popular braided bread eaten on Jewish holidays).
The executives are accused of collusion through a series of clandestine meetings held at various locations across Israel.
Several executives suspected of involvement in the cartel have been arrested since the Israel Antitrust Authority started investigating the allegations in June 2010.
Activists in the country have called on Shalom Simhon, Israel’s Trade and Industry Minister to cancel the planned 6.53 per cent increase in the cost of government-regulated white bread.
The price rise is the first for several years and though the government says that higher ingredients and fuel costs have forced the decision, the move has attracted criticism from consumer groups.
According to the indictment issued by the Antitrust Authority, Angel Bakeries CEO Yaron Angel, Berman’s Bakery CEO Yehuda Schneidman, Merhavit Bakery chairman CEO Yohanan Aharonson and Davidovich Bakery CEO Shaike Davidovich together with other, smaller bakeries, conspired to establish a cartel.
They are accused of setting prices, preventing competition and dividing up the country’s bread and baked-goods market among themselves, in violation of the Restrictive Trade Practices Law, acting in concert to raise prices for bread under price controls. The bakery executives allegedly met in coffee shops, a gas station on the Trans-Israel Highway and even in lawyers’ offices to work out the scheme.
Israel has been subject to widespread protest against food prices in the past year.