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Price fixing by Bioelements stopped by California Attorney General

18-Jan-2011

Related topics: Business & Financial

Cosmetics company Bioelements has been fined for vertical price fixing by the office of Attorney General Kamala D. Harris.

The company was found to be requiring online retailers to set prices to match those of off offline retail stores.

According to Californian law, this kind of vertical price fixing is illegal and Bioelements has been asked to pay penalties and attorney fees of $51,000.

"Bioelements operated a blatant price-fixing scheme by requiring online retailers to sell its products at high prices. Price manipulation harms consumers, competition and our business community. We will continue to be vigilant in protecting our markets from these kinds of abuses,” Harris said.

Bioelements were not available for comment at the time of publication.