An Energy Crisis and Wine Bottle Cartels — Unintended Side Effects of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Italian authorities have been investigating an alleged wine bottle cartel. (Photo: Henning Kaiser/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)

On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Italian authorities initiated an antitrust probe investigating glass wine bottle companies, accusing them of forming a wine bottle cartel.

The investigation was spawned after a handful of Italian winemakers allegedly issued warnings about a potential “cartel,” of bottle manufacturers.

The government claimed the companies that are being investigated include Italian branches of the French company Verallia, the U.S. arm of Berlin Packaging and O-I European Packaging, an Austrian company called Vetropack, and the Italian bottle-making companies Zignago Vetro and Bormioli Luigi.

Those who reached out to the government, citing concerns of cartelization were apparently Filiera Italia, Bottega — a Prosecco and liqueur company— and a whistleblower whose identity has not been revealed.

The fact that energy costs have risen after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is nothing new, and initially, bottle producers cited this as the driving factor behind raising their prices, as glassmaking requires a lot of energy.

Yet as the war in Ukraine continued, the costs of energy fell. Despite this fact, many bottlemaking companies have allegedly kept their prices the same or continued to increase them.

“In the last 18 months, the price of the glass [bottles] has grown dramatically in a way that has never happened in the past 50 years,” said Sandro Bottega, chief executive at the company. “We have never been given a specific, mathematical or logical explanation.”

The whistleblower claimed that the letters sent by these bottlemaking companies to their clients all looked eerily similar and issued the same reasons when explaining the rise in prices.

The initial investigation cited evidence of alleged pricing coordination between the bottle makers and suggested that the identical price increases were not supported by higher-priced materials in any way. A few companies responded, claiming that their reasons for raising the costs of their bottles were legitimate.

Verallia, one of the companies under investigation, reached out to the Financial Times and expressed that it would comply with the investigation and maintained it was not involved in a cartel of any sort.

“Compliance with the rules on competition is at the center of our attention,” read a statement sent to the Financial Times from the outlet.

The Financial Times reached out to Assovetro, an organization that represents glass bottle makers and the Italian company did not respond for comment.

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