Have a Claim?

Click here for a confidential contact or call:

1-212-350-2774

November 7, 2014

Posted  January 22, 2016

Flakeboard America Limited (and its parent companies Celulosa Arauco y Constitución S.A. and Inversiones Angelini y Compañía Limitada) and SierraPine agreed to pay a combined $3.8M in civil penalties and disgorge an additional $1.15M in illegally obtained profits for violating the Hart–Scott–Rodino (HSR) Act by engaging in illegal premerger coordination while Flakeboard’s proposed acquisition of three SierraPine mills was under DOJ antitrust review. Flakeboard and SierraPine abandoned the proposed acquisition after the DOJ expressed concerns about the transaction’s likely anticompetitive effects in the production of medium-density fiberboard, a wood product widely used in furniture, kitchen cabinets, and decorative mouldings. According to the government, SierraPine operated particleboard mills that competed directly with one of Flakeboard’s particleboard mills and before the expiration of the HSR Act’s mandatory premerger waiting period, Flakeboard, Arauco, and SierraPine illegally coordinated to close one of SierraPine’s mills and move the customers to Flakeboard. DOJ