A US district court in Kansas has fined Dow Chemical USD 400m for its role in an alleged price fixing cartel for polyurethane feedstocks MDI, TDI and polyester polyols. Dow was the last hold-out among the large producers targeted in the suit brought by customers in the foam industry and covering the period 1999 to 2004 – see Plasteurope.com of 28.09.2011.

Attorneys for Dow said they would seek to dismiss the lawsuit in a post-trial motion. The plaintiffs in the case, some of whom still face charges in a downstream price-fixing case, had initially sought damages of USD 1.25 bn.

Other producers named in the suit, who had previously settled out of court without admitting wrongdoing, came away with substantially lower payments. BASF Corporation (Florham Park, New Jersey / USA; www.basf.com) agreed to pay USD 51m, Bayer MaterialScience (BMS, Leverkusen / Germany; www.bayerbms.com) accepted a fine of USD 55.3m and Huntsman (The Woodlands, Texas / USA; www.huntsman.com) paid USD 33m. LyondellBasell (Rotterdam / The Netherlands; www.lyondellbasell.com), released from the proceedings while in Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, successfully proposed to end the case without paying

The foamers had charged that their suppliers met secretly to discuss prices, customers and markets for products sold in the US and elsewhere and justified increases by citing market forces and considerations such as increased raw material costs, decreased sales volume and decreased margins.