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Britain expands probe into Swiss fragrance firms

Woman tests fragrance at Givaudan firm.
An employee tests fragrances in the laboratory of fragrances and flavours manufacturer Givaudan in Dübendorf, Switzerland. © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has expanded its investigation into alleged anti-competitive practices in the perfume sector, targeting in particular the firms Givaudan and Firmenich.

The British regulator announced on Wednesday in a statement that it had extended its probe into “alleged illegal coordination” between Firmenich International (which merged with the Dutch specialty chemicals firm DSM in 2023), Givaudan and the American International Flavors & Fragrances. 

The CMA widened its investigation to “reciprocal arrangements regarding the recruitment of certain employees involved in the supply of perfumes or perfume ingredients” it said.

+ Swiss firms named in global fragrances cartel probe

The German firm Symrise is also being investigated by the CMA.

In March 2023, the European Commission announced that it had carried out inspections on the premises of companies active in the perfume industry used in particular in household and body care products, suspected of anti-competitive practices. 

+ “The science of smell is simply amazing”

The investigation concerns “possible collusion in the supply of perfumes and perfumery ingredients”. Fragrances are used in the manufacture of consumer products such as household and personal care products.

+ Tastemaker Givaudan savours smell of success

The same month the Swiss Competition Commission (Comco) also opened an investigation. Comco has evidence that the companies may have violated cartel law. They allegedly coordinated their pricing policy, prevented their competitors from supplying specific customers and restricted the production of certain perfumes.

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here

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