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A Scottish-owned water tank supplier has been fined £130,000 for unlawfully exchanging information on pricing with other firms.

Balmoral Tanks was fined by the Competition and Markets Authority, after an investigation into a cartel involving water tank firms.

to share the market, fix prices and rig bids for contracts.

The CMA found Balmoral Tanks was not a party to the cartel arrangements.

However, Balmoral - whose parent company Balmoral Group Holdings is based in Aberdeen - was found to have exchanged commercially sensitive information with its competitors at a meeting in 2012.

The meeting was secretly recorded by the CMA.

The companies all make galvanised steel water storage tanks for use in schools, hospitals and other commercial and public buildings.

Cartel decision

In its cartel decision, the regulator fined Franklin Hodge Industries and parent company Carter Thermal Industries just over £2m for collusion. Galglass, and parent companies Irish Industrial Tanks and Kernoff, were fined just under £588,000, while KW Supplies was fined £22,248.

A fourth business - CST Industries (UK) Ltd and its parent company CST Industries Inc - was granted immunity from fines, having alerted the authorities and co-operated with the investigation.

In a statement on its final decision, the CMA said: "Their aim was to improve profit margins on the tanks by avoiding customers being able to negotiate the best deal through 'playing' the competitors off against each other."

In a separate decision, the CMA also found that Franklin Hodge Industries, Galglass, KW Supplies and Balmoral Tanks breached competition law by exchanging information regarding their current pricing and future pricing intentions, "thereby reducing uncertainty among the suppliers about their likely pricing intentions".

This included a discussion of target price ranges for two sizes of tank.

'Unlawful exchange'

The regulator stated: "Balmoral Tanks Ltd (and its parent company Balmoral Group Holdings Ltd) has been fined £130,000 for taking part in this unlawful information exchange.

"The information exchange took place at a single meeting in July 2012 at which Balmoral was invited to join the cartel arrangement.

"Balmoral refused, but exchanged commercially sensitive information with its competitors."

Stephen Blake, senior director of the CMA's Cartels and Criminal Group, said: "Today's announcement shows the CMA's commitment to using its enforcement powers to tackle illegal anti-competitive behaviour.

"The information exchange decision also underlines the fact that exchanging information with competitors, even at a single meeting, can infringe competition law with serious consequences for the businesses involved."