The European Commission has informed several companies active in the synthetic turf sector of its preliminary view that they have breached EU antitrust rules by colluding to distort competition in synthetic turf for sports pitches in the Netherlands and Germany.
By: Newsdesk
If the Commission’s preliminary view is confirmed, the companies’ behaviour would amount to two cartels affecting each country respectively, violating Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’), which prohibits anticompetitive agreements and other restrictive business practices.
The sending of Statements of Objections does not prejudge the outcome of the investigations.
The Commission has preliminary concerns that Dutch-based Oranjewoud, Dutch-based TenCate Grass, as well as Belgian-based Sports & Leisure Group, all producers and installers of synthetic turf, have been coordinating their commercial conduct to restrict competition in the synthetic turf sector in the Netherlands since 2019, when they established a recycling company in the Netherlands, GBN-AGR (as of December 2024, AGR). GBN-AGR was a subsidiary of Oranjewoud, in which TenCate and Sports & Leisure Group acquired minority stakes.
The Comission is concerned that the companies agreed not to compete with GBN-AGR in recycling, to exclusively use GBN-AGR’s recycling services and to fix GBN-AGR’s pricing in a way that avoids competition between them while disadvantaging third parties. The Commission is concerned that the companies did this in order to:
Additionally, the companies are suspected of having entered into a further agreement a year after establishing GBN-AGR, to marginalise the providers of sustainable disposal services that competed with GBN-ACR’s recycling services, thereby threatening the growth of GBN-AGR.
The Statement of Objections is also addressed to Domo Sports Grass Nederland, which was spun off from Sports & Leisure Group into a self‑standing installation business in May 2025.
"Creating a functioning circular economy for plastic waste is essential for Europe's clean and competitive transition. We have always defended fair competition, and this will remain the case as industries scale up circular solutions. Fair competition ensures that businesses and consumers alike benefit from the transition. Sustainability agreements can support our environmental goals, but they must remain meaningful and fully in line with competition rules. We cannot accept attempts to distort competition under the guise of environmental action"
Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition
The Commission has preliminary concerns that, between 2020 and 2023, Oranjewoud and Germany-based Sport Group colluded on the recycling of synthetic turf for sports. During that time, Oranjewoud explored options for the expansion of GBN-AGR into other Member States, including Germany, while Sport Group was working on a recycling solution and was in the process of setting up its dedicated subsidiary FormaTurf.
The Commission is concerned that, while discussing a potential cooperation for the German market, including a possible cross-acquisition of minority shareholdings in GBN-AGR and FormaTurf, which ultimately did not take place, Oranjewoud and Sport Group engaged in anticompetitive conduct.
In particular, the Commission is concerned that as part of these discussions, Oranjewoud and Sport Group exchanged confidential and strategic information, which covered current and future prices and production capacities. This was done without any safeguards in place that would limit the exchange to what could be considered necessary in the context of discussions pertaining to the companies’ envisaged cooperation or cross-acquisition. Further, the Commission is concerned that in a subsequent part of these discussions, the two companies fixed the main price element for the recycling of end-of-life synthetic turf in Germany, which is referred to in the industry as a ‘gate fee’.
