Reuters – Mon, 7 Dec 2015 17:58 GMT
By Philip Blenkinsop and Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, Dec 7 (Reuters) – EU antitrust regulators have dropped Shell, BP, and Statoil from an investigation into suspected rigging of ethanol benchmarks, focusing instead on three producers of the biofuel.
The European Commission said on Monday it had opened a formal antitrust investigation into the actions of Spanish company Abengoa SA, Belgium’s Alcogroup SA and Lantmännen ek för of Sweden.
In April, EU antitrust regulators raided several bioenthanol companies and at the same time stepped up a two-year investigation into biofuel price benchmarks. In 2013, it searched the offices of BP, Shell and Statoil too.