Re Wood Pulp Cartel

Foreign wood-pulp producers (defendants) based outside the European Community (EC) (plaintiff) were charged with violating Article 85 of the Treaty of Rome, which bars agreements that limit competition within the European Common Market (ECM), after their coordinated pricing affected around 60 percent of wood-pulp consumption in the ECM. All the foreign producers either exported directly to the EC or operated through branches or subsidiaries there. The producers argued that applying EC competition law to them violated international law, since the only basis for jurisdiction was the economic effect inside the EC of an agreement reached entirely outside it.