EU antitrust raid on Czech power firm

All Associated Press news

BRUSSELS (AP) - European Union antitrust regulators said Tuesday they made surprise raids Monday on the Czech Republic's state-owned electricity supplier CEZ and other companies in search of evidence that CEZ shut out rivals and hiked power prices.

The European Commission said they had reason to believe that CEZ's suspected illegal conduct — either on its own or with others — "may have led to a substantial distortion of competition" aimed at boosting CEZ's dominant position as the country's wholesale power supplier.

EU nations opened up power markets to competition in 2004, a move meant to break the grip of government-owned monopolies by bringing more private rivals into the sector.

There is no deadline for an EU probe, which can end up fining a company up to 10 percent of its annual global turnover for every year that it broke antitrust rules.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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