Dole's attempt to challenge a €45.6m fine imposed upon it as punishment for the alleged price-fixing of banana imports into the European Union has been dismissed by the European Court of Justice.
Dole had already had an appeal against the European Commission's 2008 fine dismissed in 2012, when the European General Court also rejected its claims.
The total €83m 2008 fine was aimed at Dole, Del Monte and Weichert for 'colluding to pre-fix weekly price quotes for bananas in an effort to reduce their own risk and manipulate the market'.Chiquita avoided punishment as it reported the price-fixing scheme.
While Dole argued that the EC did not prove that the weekly pre-pricing communications were intended to fix prices, high court said the group had only raised most of these issues for the first time on appeal, Courthouse News Service reported.
The high court also rejected Dole's belief that the lower court had 'distorted the facts' by tying price quotes for green bananas to quotes for yellow bananas, sold weeks later and to different markets and buyers than those interested in green bananas.
