The European Commission has imposed a €40 million fine on building insulation giant Kingspan for supplying incorrect and misleading information during the antitrust review of its proposed acquisition of Slovenian rival Trimo.
Kingspan originally notified European competition authorities of its plan to acquire Trimo in March 2021. Both companies produce mineral fibre sandwich panels used in industrial and commercial construction. The Commission opened an in-depth Phase 2 investigation in April 2021 over concerns the combination would create significant market concentration, driving up prices and reducing customer choice. Kingspan subsequently abandoned the transaction in April 2022 following formal Statement of Objections from regulators.
Despite the deal’s abandonment, the Commission launched a secondary probe in November 2022 to evaluate procedural compliance under the EU Merger Regulation. Regulators ultimately identified four distinct procedural infringements carried out at least negligently in merger notification forms and formal requests for information.
Specifically, the Commission found that Kingspan submitted misleading data regarding how it tracks product penetration rates, misrepresented the availability of internal bidding data used to gauge market dynamics, misstated board members’ involvement in acquisition strategy, and provided incorrect information regarding its research and development operations. The enforcer levied a €10 million penalty for each of the four breaches, totaling €40 million.
Under European rules, the Commission can issue fines reaching up to 1% of a company’s total annual turnover for failing to supply accurate data. Regulators emphasized that accuracy in information submissions is vital, as merger reviews depend heavily on information provided by the merging parties. The Commission noted that Kingspan asserted the non-existence of critical internal documents and claimed an inability to supply data that only the company held, directly obstructing the investigation.
The penalty marks only the fourth time the EU has fined a firm for misleading procedural disclosures under the EU Merger Regulation, following previous actions against Facebook, General Electric, and Sigma-Aldrich.