Dear Readers,
Welcome to the inaugural Weekly News Digest of 2026.
We begin the year at a moment of sustained and increasingly global antitrust enforcement intensity. I am also pleased to announce a significant boost to our Turkish coverage, with a new team member now based in Türkiye. The Turkish Competition Authority remains one of the most active enforcement agencies globally, combining high case volumes with increasingly sophisticated theory of harm, and we will be expanding both the depth and frequency of our reporting from this key jurisdiction. I will share more details in due course.
For this first digest of 2026, we follow the usual format, focusing squarely on hard enforcement outcomes, particularly fines, cartel decisions, and dominance sanctions. While the past week also saw numerous policy papers, impact reports, and guidance documents, these can be found using the link below.
Below is a selection of the most significant developments published during the last week.
Fines And Cartel Enforcement
Italy: €70 Million Foundry Cartel Decision
The Italian Competition Authority closed the year with a yet another major cartel decision, imposing €70 million (around $82 million) in fines on 16 cast iron foundries and industry association Assofond. The authority found a long-running restrictive agreement affecting the national market for cast iron products, with the association playing a coordinating role.
Saudi Arabia: Multi-Sector Price-Fixing Fines
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Competition imposed SAR 36.9 million (approximately $9.8 million) in fines on 13 companies across five cases involving price-fixing in sectors including waste management, food retail, healthcare, advertising, and retail services.
Korea: $17.4 Million Furniture Bid-Rigging Case
The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined 48 furniture manufacturers and distributors a total of KRW 25 billion (around $17.4 million) for coordinating bids in hundreds of construction-related tenders, one of the largest public-procurement cartel cases of the year.
Ukraine: Sustained Bid-Rigging Enforcement
Ukraine’s Antimonopoly Committee continued its exceptionally active cartel enforcement, issuing multiple decisions in the final week of the year:
- $860,000 in fines for collusion in defence-related tenders
- $880,000 across several public-procurement cases
- $1.1 million for coordinated conduct in forestry, medical, and energy tenders
- A further $2.3 million imposed through nine additional bid-rigging decisions
Indonesia: Bid-Rigging And Year-End Enforcement
Indonesia’s KPPU fined Dieselindo Utama Nusa and a Rolls-Royce unit approximately $149,000 for bid-rigging in an engine-maintenance tender, while also publishing figures showing $41.7 million in fines imposed across 13 decisions in 2025, signalling a markedly tougher enforcement posture.
Dominance And Excessive Pricing
Kazakhstan: Airports And Digital Health Fined
Kazakhstan’s competition authority sanctioned:
- Two regional airports for imposing monopolistically high aviation-fuel prices
- The operator of the DAMUMED medical information system, fined approximately $556,000 for excessive pricing
Investigations And Dawn Raids
Serbia: EPS Tender Bid-Rigging Probe
The Serbian authority launched proceedings and carried out investigative steps against three companies suspected of collusion in public tenders run by state-owned utility Elektroprivreda Srbije (EPS).
Türkiye: New Sector Investigations
Türkiye closed the year with fresh enforcement momentum, opening:
- A cartel investigation into vegetable seedling producers and their industry association
- A vertical restraints probe into Kyocera and its distributor, focusing on alleged restrictions on parallel imports and resale practices
Merger Control And Procedural Enforcement
China: Gun-Jumping Fines Continue
China’s market regulator fined two Zhejiang-based companies approximately $214,000 for implementing a joint venture without prior clearance, marking another gun-jumping case in a year of heightened procedural enforcement.
Japan: In-Depth Review Opened
Japan’s Fair Trade Commission launched a Phase II review of Prime Polymer’s acquisition of parts of Sumitomo Chemical, citing the need for a more detailed assessment of competitive effects.
View all 35 last week’s news stories here.
