Cape Town - ArcelorMittal SA [JSE:ACL] (AMSA) has confirmed its first payment of the record R1.5bn fine it was slapped with by the Competition Tribunal in August 2016 after pleading guilty to price fixing.
The steelmaker on Monday announced that a payment of R100m was made as agreed upon with the Competition Competition.
Fin24 previously reported that ArcelorMittal admitted guilt to a matter, which relates to allegations of fixing prices, allocating customers and sharing commercially sensitive information.
The company is set to pay the R1.5bn fine over five years in instalments of no less than R300m per year.
In a note to shareholders AMSA announced an agreement was reached with the Commission to divide the 2017 payment into three instalments of R100m each.
According to a statement issued by the steel multinational, the Commission has taken into account the company’s financial position, resulting from the tough trading conditions in the global and local steel industries, in considering this amendment.
The agreement states that the revised payment terms apply only to the first year and the next two instalments will be made on 1 April 2018 and 1 July 2018. Thereafter, the instalments will continue as originally agreed.
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