The Department of Justice reached a settlement today with a Connecticut company, formerly a major fertilizer manufacturer, that will prevent the company from again using collusive practices to restrain competitive bidding on a Tampa, Florida, facility used to store an ingredient that makes fertilizer. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tampa, the Department's Antitrust Division alleged that the Stamford, Connecticut-based Seminole Fertilizer Corp. entered into a secret agreement with its chief rival on the terms of a bid for an ammonia storage facility in Tampa.
Ammonia is a primary raw material for the production of diammonium phosphate fertilizer.
The Department alleged that the agreement had the effect of eliminating Seminole as a viable competing bidder for the facility, thereby restraining trade. Had the agreement not been discovered prior to the sale, the seller would have received an artificially lower price. Under the settlement, Seminole agreed not to enter into Page 2 agreements with others illegally setting the price of assets used in the production and distribution of fertilizer. Seminole also agreed not to submit joint bids for fertilizer assets without first notifying the seller of the asset and the person administering the sale of the asset that the bid was jointly proposed. In exchange, Norsk agreed to give Seminole increased pipeline capacity if Norsk was the successful bidder.