Was there price fixing among Urethane raw material suppliers?
Recent rumor has it that several, if not all, of the major manufacturers of polyurethane raw materials have been subpoenaed by the US Department of Justice for possible price-fixing. There are also rumours of class action lawsuits against some suppliers. We have been receiving regular price increases on TDI and MDI based raw materials since January 2005 with some products placed on allocations. Our company, Crosslink Technology Inc., is not a major user of these raw materials in comparison to companies involved in the urethane foam business, nevertheless the increases had a major impact on our pricing structure. For awhile we had to scramble to keep our customers for specialty polyurethane compounds supplied. Supplies have eased during the recent months and we certainly hope that the current suspicions turn out to be false although the saying is “where there is smoke there is usually a fire”.
