© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The Goldman Sachs sign is seen above the floor of the New York Stock Exchange shortly after opening bell in New York‘s Manhattan borough.
By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – US investment bank Goldman Sachs lost its fight on Wednesday against an EU cartel fine imposed on its former Italian subsidiary and cable maker Prysmian after Europe’s high court said it he was responsible for the actions of the unit. Prysmian was fined 104.6 million euros ($ 127 million) by EU antitrust regulators in 2014 for participating in a cartel with 10 other cable manufacturers. His sanction included a joint fine of 37.3 million euros with Goldman Sachs, which had acquired the Italian company through one of its private equity funds in 2005, but has since sold its stake. The European Commission in its 2014 decision said that Goldman Sachs, as the parent company, had a decisive influence on Prysmian. A lower EU court in 2018 backed his argument. The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) agreed with the reasoning and rejected Goldman Sachs’ appeal. “The General Court did not err in law in considering that, in the present case, the Commission could rely on a presumption of effective exercise of decisive influence to establish the responsibility of the appellant for the disputed infringement in relation to the pre-period of the WIPO “, said judges of the CJEU. The case is C-595/18 P The Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE 🙂 against Commission. ($ 1 = 0.8232 euros)
