"As of today, the EU has not been able to produce anything that incriminates us in any way," CEO Heinz-Jürgen Bertram told journalists on Wednesday. "We feel we have been unfairly pilloried." Symrise has now incurred legal costs in the multi-million euro range. The investigation, which was originally scheduled for one week, was completed after two days and the EU only kept 56 of the thousands of documents reviewed. "There is not one of them where they can derive antitrust proceedings from it. We have had this checked by a lawyer."

The world's leading fragrance and flavor manufacturers, including Symrise, were targeted by the competition authorities in March. Both the EU antitrust authority and the Swiss Competition Commission (Weko) launched investigations against the companies on suspicion of anti-competitive agreements. In addition to Symrise, the two Swiss manufacturers Givaudan and Firmenich as well as IFF from the USA were affected. In May, Symrise appealed to the General Court of the European Union (EGC) against the search carried out at the beginning of March.

(Report by Patricia Weiß; edited by Sabine Wollrab. If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)