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  1. Business
15 May 2013updated 22 Oct 2020 3:55pm

Could this be the oil industry’s Libor?

Shell, BP, Statoil and pricing agency Platts investigated for price manipulation.

By Mark Brierley

The offices of several European oil companies, including Shell, BP, Statoil and pricing agency Platts, were yesterday raided by investigators from the European Commission, who are looking into the potential price manipulation of oil, refined products and biofuel, dating back more than a decade.

A Commission statement confirmed they were examining the possibility that; “the companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products.”

“Furthermore, the commission has concerns that the companies may have prevented others from participating in the price assessment process, with a view to distorting published prices,” it said.

It also made clear that although investigations were ongoing, it did not mean the companies involved are guilty of any wrongdoing.

The four companies all confirmed that the Commission had made what it called “unannounced inspections” yesterday, and that each was cooperating fully with both EU and national anti-competition authorities over the matter, with Statoil adding the suspected collusion could go back as far as 2002.

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Even slight distortions in the assessed prices of oil products can have a massive impact on the price end-users pay. Echoing the recent Libor rigging scandal, which saw Barclays and UBS heavily fined by UK and US authorities over the fixing of the London Interbank Offered Rate, this investigation is the latest in a series of such probes around the world, signalling increased scrutiny on financial benchmarks across a range of markets.

If the allegations are proven to be true, it could prove to be another PR disaster for Britain’s beleaguered oil companies, particularly BP, whose reputation, and balance sheet, has not yet fully recovered from the Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010; recently receiving a record $17.6 billion fine in the US, having already spent billions on the clean-up operation in the Gulf of Mexico.

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