Greece’s competition watchdog has fined seven of the country’s dairy companies – including the five biggest – a total of €48.3 million for alleged price-fixing.

According to the country’s Competition Commission, five of the companies agreed to freeze prices paid to dairy producers in 2004 and some of the companies had exchanged pricing information and conspired to fix yogurt prices. The watchdog also said the association of dairy companies had breached competition regulations.

It named the alleged offenders as Vivartia – Greece’s largest food company – Mevgal, Fage, Nestle, Olymbos, Kri-Kri Milk Industry and Sergal.

The action came after investigations initiated by the September 2006 arrest of the competition commission’s director-general Panayotis Adamopoulos for allegedly soliciting a €2.5 million bribe from Mevgal to settled a €25 million fine.