Creating clubs and giants: How competition policies influenced the strategy and structure of Nordic pulp and paper industry, 1970–2000

Abstract

This article shows how companies can circumvent competition legislation by developing new informal ways of cooperation. We focus on the case of the Nordic pulp and paper industry which was particularly eager to set up cartels. Scholars analysing this sector can utilise exceptionally rich sources that reveal how industrialists reacted to the introduction and development of European competition policies. The article shows that companies defended their collusive practices by making them less transparent and more informal than before, a change that did not automatically lessen their effectiveness. Tougher competition policies also encouraged industrialists to create new giant companies.

Keywords:

• Competition policy
• antitrust
• cartels
• pulp and paper industry

Introduction

In this article, we look at how one industry, pulp and paper, which was particularly prone to collusive behavior, reacted to the introduction of tough European competition policies during the last decades of the twentieth century. It is argued that the pulp and paper industrialists responded to this challenge by developing new, less transparent forms of international cooperation and that the competition policies also promoted the consolidation of this economic sector. Cooperation between competitors continued to be a key element in the business strategies of pulp and paper companies up to the 1990s.

Cartels are in general a popular subject of study, in particular among economic and business historians and economists, who have produced a vast number of studies that underline the willingness of European companies to set up national and transnational cartels.¹ And yet, very few of these studies focus on the post-1945 period.² But what did the companies actually do when the European integration process made the formation of transnational cartels that affected trade within the EEC and later EC and EU illegal during the last decades of the twentieth century? Did they give up traditional and cherished modes of cooperation, or take them underground, or perhaps transform them to legally acceptable institutions? In this article, we seek answers to these questions.

In Europe, the late twentieth century is usually seen as an era of decartelisation although it has been recognised that this process was a slow one.³ Yet, these conclusions are based on limited source material, as companies tried to avoid producing documents that could be used as evidence against them. Many studies suggest that a number of transnational interwar cartels were re-established during the late 1940s and early 1950s,⁴ but since then the Western European companies have understandably been careful of what they put on paper. Therefore, scholars studying private cartels of the second half of the twentieth century have usually been forced to focus on those that have been uncovered by anti-cartel authorities and to use evidence gathered as a result of official investigations.⁵ Some cartels were also officially registered.⁶ Yet, as John M. Connor and C. Gustav Helmers have complained: ‘a frequent limitation in cartel research is the clandestine nature of cartels. The majority of private cartels never come to light.’⁷

A student of the European pulp and paper alliances has richer source materials than scholars studying most other industries. Finland, Sweden and Norway were important pulp and paper exporters. For example, in 1989, Finland and Sweden were the largest in Europe, while Norway was the seventh largest paper exporter and the sixth largest in pulp sales.⁸ Their national and joint Nordic export cartels played a central role in wider European cartel negotiations,⁹ where industrialists from major producer countries like West Germany, France and the Netherlands were also represented. The producers of Sweden, Finland and Norway tried to operate as a coherent group in these intra-European negotiations. Hence ‘Nordic industry’ in this article is not a geographical or artificial category. When we talk about ‘Nordic cartels’ we mean alliances which had members from more than one Nordic country. We shall ignore purely national ones unless they became components of wider international alliances.

The governments of the three Nordic countries were not members of the European Economic Community (EEC, or later the European Communities, EC), and had little desire to interfere in the collusive behaviour of their exporters. Hence, Nordic companies could produce an extensive amount of documents about the transnational negotiations. In addition, many joint Nordic cartels produced minutes and other documents, and distributed copies to members. This situation did not change until the 1990s when the Nordic governments tightened their competition legislation and policies and Finland and Sweden joined the European Union (EU). This article is mainly based on this particularly illuminating source material, as well as on published sources.

National cartels, including the Finnish ones, which were most extensive, were disbanded during the 1990s. At the same time most traditional small Nordic pulp and paper companies disappeared as a result of a large merger movement. This led to the creation of giant corporations, such as the Swedish–Finnish Stora Enso and the Finnish UPM-Kymmene, which became the two biggest paper producers in Europe. The archives of old Finnish companies and disbanded national export associations were transferred to institutions like the Central Archives for Finnish Business Records in Mikkeli, and the Central Archives of the UPM-Kymmene in Valkeakoski, which restrict the ability of scholars to study documents only in exceptional circumstances. These files were created by Finnish companies, which means that their views may be overrepresented in this article. We do, however, know from earlier literature that the Finns played a key role in the international cartel negotiations.¹⁰ The Finnish archives also contain numerous documents that joint Nordic associations and other private European organisations distributed to their members and colleagues.

In this article, we shall show that from the end of the 1960s onwards, the export-oriented Nordic industrialists had to consider how to react to EEC competition policies. Yet, during the following two decades, the competition authorities were unable to stop Nordic cartels from operating within the community. In the late 1970s, EEC commission launched few investigations but failed to tackle competition restrictions effectively. New tougher policies from the late 1980s onwards did encourage industrialists to act more cautiously but in the end, it was the changes in Nordic legislation and the membership of Finland and Sweden in the EU that had a crucial impact on cartels.¹¹

The old cartels that predated tough European competition policies had formal and sometimes very sophisticated structures and rules, while the new cartels that emerged during 1970s and 1980s were instead based on less transparent structures and informal links between the members. They exchanged information about prices and market trends and attempted to agree on common prices. Regular interaction and shared views created strong ties and mutual trust. This could create a basis for tacit collusion: the companies would act in a parallel manner even though there was no actual agreement.¹²

What happened in the pulp and paper trade could have happened in other fields as well. Many European industrialists were eager to limit competition in order to improve their companies’ profitability and increase the stability of their business environment. After the Second World War, such desires did not disappear simply because the governments or public opinion gradually adopted a negative attitude towards cartels. Neil Rollings and Matthias Kipping discovered that most Western European national industrial federations in the early 1950s shared the desire to set up national cartels that would together form transnational ones, but these federations also understood that such views could not be expressed in public.¹³ From the late 1950s onwards, they officially abandoned banned forms of cooperation; however, since the 1990s, competition authorities had uncovered several illegal contemporary alliances.¹⁴

Informal cooperation, trust and tacit collusion are well-known concepts in cartel research and we shall be able to benefit from some earlier theoretical insights. For example, Christopher R. Leslie has argued that ‘trust is the glue that binds couples, communities and countries’ and that without it ‘many cartels will collapse under the weight of distrust, anticipated defections, and actual defections.’¹⁵ Dominique Barjot, in turn, has divided cartels to two groups: ‘cartels established on the basis of explicit, written agreements, and tacit or concerted cartels, operating through informal contacts between the parties involved.’¹⁶ However, there is little empirical research that has applied these insights to research on post-Second World War cartels. This is not simply an empirical problem; lack of evidence has also made it difficult to refine and develop further theories about how companies behave in conditions where they are engaged in informal cooperation. Barjot’s first group of cartels, the formal ones, have been studied in detail. It is now time to look more closely at the second category, the informal cartels, especially as it seems likely that since the end of the Second World War, this group has been the more important of the two.

Students of European integration, in turn, have until recently directed their attention mostly to the actions of politicians and civil servants who created common (Western) European institutions, and in the attempts by special interest groups to lobby those governments that did so. They have also been interested in the gradual evolution of EU and national competition policies, as well as key institutions like the Directorate-General IV of the European Commission, which was responsible for the competition policy.¹⁷ However, in recent years, historians have begun to give increasing attention to the role of those transnational networks that were set up by non-state actors who endeavoured to mould, promote or undermine the European integration process.¹⁸ In addition to sharing a contribution to the scholarship on cartels, this article reflects this new trend of research on European integration.

Nordic cartels and European integration

Nordic producers utilised their rich forest resources to produce woodpulp, which was either sold directly to foreign customers or processed to paper in domestic integrated mills. They were also eager to build cartels. First attempts to build transnational ones occurred in the last decades of the nineteenth century, but this process accelerated after 1918 when the Finnish producers, who had just lost previously crucial Russian markets because of the Bolshevik revolution, set up the highly coordinated national sales cartels Finpap (later Finnpap) and Finncell in order to facilitate entry to Western markets.¹⁹ During the interwar years, the Finns, Swedes and Norwegians set up a number of joint sales cartels to cover various pulp and paper grades. The most famous of these were the so-called Scan organisations, such as the newsprint suppliers Scannews, and the kraft (strong packing) paper producers Scankraft, but there were also cartels that covered the sale of mechanical and chemical pulp. When the Second World War began, there was Nordic cooperation of this kind in most fields of pulp and paper trade and in some cases also more extensive European or transatlantic links and alliances.²⁰

In the pulp and paper industry, the desire to form cartels was particularly strong since the sector had several characteristics that traditionally promoted cartelisation: it was a capital-intensive field, where the barriers of entry were high, access to raw materials crucial, and the products relatively homogenous. Traditional cyclicality of the pulp and paper markets posed a continuous threat to the profitability of the industry and encouraged companies to launch joint efforts to ‘stabilise’ trade.²¹

Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish governments had no reason to stop their pulp and paper companies from cooperating in foreign markets. Companies were usually allowed to form export cartels even in countries such as the United States which had tough competition laws, as long as these alliances did not cover domestic markets as well. Furthermore, the Nordic countries, and Finland in particular, was so dependent on pulp and paper exports that it was vital for national economies to support them. Cartels could promote economic stability and growth and make companies from small countries stronger players in international trade and negotiations.²²

From the point of view of the EEC, the Nordic cartels were not so beneficial. The Treaty of Rome (1957) decreed that companies could no longer set up price-fixing and market-sharing accords, which could distort trade and limit competition between EEC countries. According to so-called ‘effects doctrine’, which became a key element in European competition policies and legislation, cartels that influenced trade within the community were banned also in cases where their member companies were registered in non-EEC countries or had production plants in them. As the Nordic pulp and paper companies sold most of their goods to Western European markets, the EEC argued that it had the right to attack Nordic cartels even though their home counties were not members of the community.²³

The growth of production during the twentieth century had made Finland, Sweden and Norway important players in the international pulp and paper trade. Their most important customers were in Western Europe but the United Kingdom and many of the original EEC countries, in particular West Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands, were themselves major paper producers. The Nordic industry was generally believed to be more competitive because they had a number of natural advantages, such as hydro-electric power and plentiful raw material resources. Yet, in other European countries protective barriers had helped local industry to grow.²⁴

The Nordic countries were not members of the EEC, but they did participate in the European integration process in other ways. Sweden and Norway joined the European Free Trade Association when it was set up in 1959–1960, and Finland became an associate member in 1961. The Nordic exporters got better access than before to the vital and large British market and also to a number of smaller but important ones.²⁵ In the early 1970s, all three Nordic countries concluded free trade agreements with the enlarged EEC. Norway was originally going to be a full member, but the country’s voters rejected this option.

The Nordic companies were understandably interested in increasing their sales to previously protected foreign markets when trade barriers began to disappear. Yet, they were also interested in protecting their profitability and reluctant to resort to aggressive tactics to push their competitors out of the market. Finncell, the Finnish national woodpulp export cartel, explained to its British agents in 1961 that the Finnish forest industry (timber, pulp, paper and board) had ‘never been able to afford – neither would it in the future – to think in the way of revolutionary actions with regard to competition with other countries.’ The Finnish industry ‘together with is foreign competitors as well as with its colleagues abroad has always tried by way of negotiations to overcome difficulties which are bound to appear in times of expansion in all fields of industry.’²⁶ They probably meant what they said. In a capital-intensive business, price wars still created huge losses even for likely eventual victors, and the Finns, who at the time still lived in a semi-agricultural country with limited capital resources, had little money to lose. A more moderate expansion of exports was a better option. The demand for pulp and paper in Western Europe was growing, and there was room for all.

Governments could, in theory, make such corporate negotiations difficult. The Nordic industries recognised immediately after the Second World War that the general attitude towards cartels had become less positive than it had been before. When the US authorities suggested in the 1940s that the Charter of the new International Trade Organization (ITO) should include anti-cartel sections, the Co-operative Council of Nordic Forest Industries opposed this idea. Only harmful private or public monopolies should be banned, the businessmen argued. Algot Bagge, a distinguished Swedish lawyer who acted as the chairman of the meeting where this issue was discussed and had earlier studied US competition policies on behalf of the Swedish pulp industry, observed that the American ‘crusade’ against cartels had acquired an ‘almost religious character’.²⁷

In the end, the ITO was never established although it was the US Congress, not the Nordic industrialists, who killed it.²⁸ The pulp and paper industrialists could continue building international cartels, and earlier research suggests that their eagerness to do so in fact increased during the late 1950s and 1960s. As official trade barriers were removed, there was more room for private regulation, i.e. cartels.²⁹

At the end of the 1960s, the Scan organisations had for the first time to consider whether or not they should change their cooperative habits. The anti-cartel authorities of the EEC and West Germany began to study competitive conditions in paper markets. Although these studies did not yet create substantial problems for Scan cartels, they responded to this change by modifying institutional structures of cooperation.³⁰

When Norway was negotiating with the EEC at the beginning of 1970s about possible membership, the latter informed that the Norwegians should resign from Scan cartels. Sweden and Finland were going to negotiate a free trade agreement with the EEC and in response to these events, the Scan organisations decided to ‘clean up’ their rules. All references to market stabilisation, price-fixing and third party cooperation were removed. Paragraphs that referred to fines given to those that had violated against the rules of the cartels were also erased.³¹

A closer look at the operations of these organisations indicates that in practice little changed. These Swedish–Finnish–Norwegian alliances continued to attempt to limit competition between members and often outsiders as well; they just did it in a less transparent way. For example, after the reforms of the early 1970s, Scannews, the organisation that regulated the sales of newsprint – the most voluminous grade of paper – had two sets of rules and governing bodies. The official constitution spoke in vague terms about the desire to promote the interests of the industry and sales of Nordic newsprint by exchanging views and collecting statistics. The unofficial one, drafted in the form of a confidential memo, showed that Scannews continued to do what cartels did. Various committees controlled production, exchanged information and fixed prices.³² They also maintained contact with the Canadians, exchanged information and fixed prices for some markets, including the vital UK one.³³

Innovations travel also in the field of cartels. The Nordic industrialists learned that many Northern American alliances had been converted to institutes that officially just collected statistics and conducted research.³⁴ Scankraft soon became the ‘Scandinavian Kraft Paper Institute’ that did all these things, ³⁵ but in practice it also continued to provide a framework where businessmen could plan production cuts and talk about prices.³⁶

The traditional paper cartels had had strict bylaws, formal decision-making bodies, regular staff, and sometimes strict sanctions against those who violated their rules. These traditional organisations were sometimes called ‘German-type’ cartels, not only because of strong German traditions in this field, but also because the Nordic industrialists had originally borrowed models of co-operation from their German competitors.³⁷ The new cartels lacked many of the formal characteristics that earlier ones had had, and were instead based on informal and active links between the members. It has to be recognised that this did not automatically mean that they were less effective in limiting competition. The new cartels would regularly exchange information about prices and market trends and try to agree on common price levels for various products. When in 1973 Finnish and Swedish paper producers’ traditional formal agreement to respect each other’s home markets lost its legally binding status in Sweden, the Swedish producers informed that this should be replaced with an ‘informal and practical’ arrangement.³⁸ Sometimes, international paper producers could even have ‘a highly developed rapport, which enabled everyone to arrive at the same figure independently.’³⁹ If this did not work, one could also give a delicate hint. Scanpapp, the Nordic board makers’ cartel decided in March 1972 that the prices of kraftliner, one of their main products, should go up, but that it would be tactically better that US producers would announce their new export prices first: ‘Americans will nevertheless be told through suitable channels, that Scandinavians are ready to support [them]’, and make a similar move at the same time, a Finnish executive reported to his superiors.⁴⁰

A fear of reprisals could also diminish the desire to compete. When Converta, the Finnish sales association representing paper and board converters, considered buying a marketing network in Sweden in the mid-1970s, executives from G.A. Serlachius Oy and Nokia Oy, both important members, had serious doubts about the wisdom of such a move. Nils Björklund a Vice-President of G.A. Serlachius explained their view: ‘Swedish and Finnish producers of crêpe paper have “peaceful coexistence”. In both sides of the Gulf of Bothnia [the sea separating the two countries] people realise that you do not go and mess your neighbour’s affairs.’ Björklund continued that if the Finns nevertheless did so, the Swedes would ‘strike back’ in the Finnish market, which would have ‘disastrous’ effect on the profitability of local producers.⁴¹

Improvements in telecommunications made co-operation much easier than before.⁴² Managers could easily phone a colleague or send a telex message about changes in prices.⁴³ Social events had an important role in the operation and formation of cartels. Business leaders got to know each other and to exchange views freely in a relaxed atmosphere: ‘It can be fairly stated that when two or three newsprint executives are gathered together (often in an expensive hotel for their annual conference), they are unable to resist the temptation of bewailing the ruinously low prices which so often appear to prevail,’ the Financial Times wrote in 1980.⁴⁴ As late as the 1990s, the EEC competition authorities uncovered an extensive international paperboard cartel, whose meetings had been disguised as social gatherings of industry leaders.⁴⁵

New cartels produced much less incriminating information about their activities than their predecessors. This partly explains why some extensive EEC anti-cartel investigations failed to produce convincing evidence about cooperation. In 1984, the EC Commission ordered a large number of woodpulp companies from inside and outside of the community to pay fines, because they had committed ‘serious restrictions of competition’ between 1973 and 1981. According to the Commission, this had affected roughly 60 per cent of total consumption of bleached sulphate woodpulp (the most common pulp grade) within the EEC area. The authorities could show striking similarities in the activities of various Nordic, EEC, Mediterranean and North American producers, but the defendants could easily point out that these might have reflected normal market developments. After a lengthy legal process that lasted until the early 1990s, the European Court of Justice rejected many of the key findings of the Commission.⁴⁶ According to Lee McGowan, this ‘outcome shocked DG Competition staff’ and showed that they needed to find more evidence to support their claims.’⁴⁷

Finnish documents reveal what had actually happened: there had been long-standing cooperation between the Canadians and the Nordic producers in particular, but in the late 1970s this system had, at least temporarily, collapsed because the erosion of competitiveness and the entry of new Latin American producers had forced Finnish producers to cut their prices.⁴⁸ Ironically, the authorities were focusing on a period when the pulp industry in many countries, and in particular in Europe, was losing money: ‘We should continue our cooperation with our competitors and try, if possible, to limit too radical cuts in prices,’⁴⁹ Finncell observed, but it was difficult to formulate a common view at these difficult times when the North American industry was clearly doing better than their main European counterparts. In a way, market developments had, at least temporarily, destroyed the cartel, which the authorities were trying to unmask.

The transformation of the cartels did not reflect only pressure from competition authorities. The traditional paper and pulp cartels had never functioned as effectively as their founders had hoped. The history of Scan organisations is full of stories of internal divisions, quarrels and cheating. Paper markets retained their cyclical nature. Literature on international cartels suggests that ‘[i]n general, instability in the economic environment destabilizes cartels’.⁵⁰ Therefore, it is not surprising that external shocks often effectively undermined paper and pulp cartels. When the demand declined strongly, or the production increased faster than demand, producers had to work hard to keep their associations alive. For example, in the early 1950s, a severe drop in demand led to ‘complete failure’ in joint Nordic efforts to regulate pulp exports,⁵¹ and in the early 1960s the whole system of Scan organisations was in danger because of overcapacity caused mainly by a recent substantial increase in Finnish production.⁵² In the summer of 1973, the Swedes and Finns were ‘again’ in a ‘full price war’ in Norwegian market for paper towels.⁵³

When it was difficult to fill order books, there was a strong incentive to cheat. When some companies decided to lower prices, they often did this by offering secret discounts to customers. When the other producers found out, they were understandingly annoyed and complained bitterly. Often there were so many rumours (some of them false) of unilateral actions circulating, that this created a widespread feeling of mistrust, which eroded the whole basis for co-operation.⁵⁴ Often these rumours were vague and suggested broadly that some cartel members could not be trusted. For example, in October 1975, when marketing conditions were particularly challenging, an unnamed agent of Enso-Gutzeit Oy complained to the company that the ‘Swedes always seem to fool Finns in practising their pricing policy and consequently pick up orders from customers before Finns have reacted anyway.’⁵⁵

In short, lack of trust often became a serious problem. Dissemination of information about production, sales and prices could at least partly solve these problems, because it allowed the members of the cartel to monitor market trends and their competitors’ activities. Yet, it was trust, built gradually through personal contacts and communications, that was crucial for the survival and success of the cartels. ‘Old paper cartels’ had resorted to sanctions and changes in regulations to overcome the problem of cheating, but the new cartels were based on a notion that trust could form a strong enough ‘glue’ to make sure that cheating would not occur on a large scale. The fact that the leaders of the Scan organisations came from similar Nordic cultural backgrounds and ‘high-trust societies’ may have helped to strengthen this trust.⁵⁶

Clubbing

New informal cartels were often called ‘clubs’ in the pulp and paper trade, and at least in some other fields of industry as well.⁵⁷ In the early 1970s, the producers of paper towels responded to the tightening of Swedish competition legislation on domestic trade by replacing their cartel with a ‘discussion club’.⁵⁸ According to the EEC Commission, a number of pulp producers from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Canada, Portugal, Spain and France had in the 1970s a ‘Mini-Fides Club’ and later a ‘Bristol Club’, where prices were fixed and information exchanged.⁵⁹ In the same decade, the Swedish and Finnish producers of core paper for laminates, a section of a kraft paper market, had a ‘Klemm Club.’⁶⁰

Yet, the most important of these paper associations amongst the new generation was the ‘Helsinki Club’, which was set up in 1965 by the Nordic producers of magazine printing paper, a rapidly expanding field at the time. An internal memo written in 1973 argued that, ‘the co-operation was based on mutual trust,’ and continued to underline that ‘the club’ had no official rules (these had originally been drafted but not formally ratified), formal price lists or even detailed statistics, yet the system worked well and the members believed that ‘the co-operation had been a very important factor in the efforts to raise prices to a proper level.’⁶¹ It might have helped that the Club had formed links with the continental industry.⁶² The name of the alliance was, however, changed to Nordprint in 1976 because a couple of Swedish commentators had pointed out that word ‘club’ suggested that it was a closed, secretive group,⁶³ which, in reality, it was in many ways.

Yet, others still hoped to form such closed circles. ‘We should get a club for this field’ Pentti Salmi, the head of Enso-Gutzeit, a major Finnish company, observed in January 1983 when a group of Finnish and French industrialists had concluded that regrettably there was no cooperation in fine paper markets even though ‘good relations’ existed in most other fields of the paper trade.⁶⁴

There was probably less competition in these markets than these comments suggest. Documents from the 1970s indicate that Scanfin, the cartel of Nordic fine paper exporters, and the EC producers were trying to regulate markets in various ways, at least in some sections of the market. The Nordic producers had promised to limit sales to the Community, while EC companies, with the exception of Italians, had agreed to cut production. Scanfin and ‘most important European producers’ of woodfree papers were also fixing prices, or at least attempting to do so, in West Germany, France, Denmark, the Soviet Union, the UK, the Benelux countries and even in unspecified non-European markets. A Finnish document from 1974 implies that this cooperation occurred in the framework of an alliance called a ‘Club des Dix’, which may have died by the early 1980s, when Salmi expressed his desire to build one.⁶⁵

Salmi’s comment nevertheless suggests that the industrialists were not just trying to defend existing structures but also to create new ones. In the early 1970s, Nordic producers were busy building new arrangements for sales of sack paper, produced by members of Scankraft, to West Germany. They did so even though Bundeskartellamt (BKA), the West German Cartel Office, was investigating the paper sector at the very same time. The preparations continued but the industrialists tried to ensure that German officials would not get their hands on any evidence: ‘As you well understand, these are totally impossible papers for cartel reasons’, Thomas Nystén, a Finnpap executive wrote (in Finnish) to the sales associations’ representative in Frankfurt am Main. The latter understood the need for precautions: ‘I am writing without a secretary and copy. I have read the papers you sent. I will burn them today after I have read them once more. For your information, the gentlemen from BKA are at the moment at VDP [Der Verband Deutscher Papierfabriken, the trade association of German paper industry] and Feldmühle [a major German company].’⁶⁶ In short, no evidence should survive in Germany but luckily for future historians the other party in this correspondence was located in Finland, and felt safe enough to keep the correspondence in his files. This was understandable, as the Finnish authorities were not opposed to the cartel-like activities of Finnish companies.

Nystén was ‘creative and dynamic, and he did not lack civil courage’, stated his obituary, written in 2011 by a retired head of a Finnish paper company. He was also, according to the same observer, ‘more a bridge builder than a technocrat.’ ⁶⁷ Nystén and his colleagues employed these kinds of skills in the field of international cooperation. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the Helsinki Club and the continental industry had an agreement, a sort of private ‘crisis cartel’ to limit production and investments. The purpose was ‘to balance supply and demand per quality group’.⁶⁸ ‘Quality’ in the industry’s vocabulary referred to individual paper types.

The newsprint producers had a similar agreement. In the summer of 1977, the Central European industry promised to limit its investments in this field and some related ones if the Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian producers promised to do the same. In practise, both parties promised not to order any new production machinery before January 1980. A confidential ‘Memorandum of Agreement’, written in English, indicated that the arrangements covered most of non-communist Europe:

It is essential for the achievement of the purpose of this understanding that all present manufacturers of the quality range defined below, including potential future manufacturers of same qualities, within the EFTA and EEC area adhere to the basic principle of a temporary postponement of new production as outlined below.

The negotiators naturally understood that outsiders might spoil the party:

Should outsiders (Europeans or non-Europeans, not covered by this Memorandum) establish themselves in the area falling under the provisions of this Memorandum, they shall in the first place be invited to participate in this agreement. Should such an invitation not be accepted, this Memorandum of Agreement becomes null and void.⁶⁹

During the negotiations, Pentti Salmi argued with the other heads of Finnish paper producers that the agreement would have a ‘decisive’ impact on their profitability.⁷⁰ The ongoing recession had badly hammered it and had also weakened the ability of companies to invest. After all, paper machines were exceptionally bulky and costly items. In Finland only one new such machine was installed in 1977 and none in 1978 and 1979. In the beginning of the 1980s, in contrast, no less than nine large investment projects were launched.⁷¹ By this time, the economy had picked up, the industry was again back on its feet, and the deadline mentioned in the ‘Memorandum of Agreement’ had passed.

The competition authorities could not stop collaboration in this field. In 1979–1980, they launched an investigation into the marketing of Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish newsprint but the case was quickly settled. According to Sakari Heikkinen, the ‘commission was unable to substantiate its accusations concerning a Nordic newsprint cartel’.⁷² Cooperation between Nordic producers continued, but Scannews and Nordprint did make a better effort to hide their activities. When their new rules were accepted in December 1980, these were no longer distributed to members but were kept in the headquarters of these organisations in Sweden as well as in Finnpap’s offices in Helsinki.⁷³ A Finnpap memo from the early 1980s urged employees not to carry documents about ‘any cooperation, Nordic or other’ with them on business trips and to restrict as much as possible the distribution of such documents.⁷⁴

Intra-European cooperation between companies could reduce political pressure on the authorities and protect jobs. In the middle of the 1980s, Confédération Européenne de l’Industrie des pâtes, papiers et cartons (CEPAC), the association representing community’s paper industry, complained bitterly about new Nordic investments. In response, Fernand Braun, the Commission’s Director General responsible for industrial affairs (DGIII) suggested that industrialists could settle these differences themselves without outside interference.⁷⁵

Consolidation

Tough competition policies do not necessarily lead to increased competition because they can encourage consolidation. When R. Erik Serlachius, a leading Finnish industrialist, and the head of G.A. Serlachius, made a long trip across the United States in 1955 to study commercial and technical developments in the country’s paper industry, he concluded that the ban on cartels had led to an emergence of a small number of giant corporations that controlled the production of the most important pulp and paper grades.⁷⁶ The situation in Finland could not have been more different: The industry in Serlachius’ home country consisted of dozens of small companies, each of which had limited resources but cooperated with others extensively. The first cartel law came into force in 1958, but it placed few restrictions on such activities.⁷⁷

It took no less than three decades before things changed. In the 1980s and 1990s, most small Nordic companies disappeared one after another from the face of the earth. Pulp and paper was a capital-intensive field, where economies of scale were crucial. In order to stay competitive in international markets, Nordic producers had to build bigger and bigger pulp and paper mills. Small family companies realised that their resources were not large enough and sold their operations to bigger players. Giants did not need national sales associations because they could build large marketing and distribution networks themselves. Co-operation had also helped the survival of small producers, which could not have defended their market shares in open, unrestricted competition. When such cooperation became illegal, even in the Nordic countries at the end of the century, this accelerated the trend towards consolidation.

One of the forerunners in independent marketing was Enso-Gutzeit, the biggest of the Finnish firms, which, probably due to its size, had from 1950s onwards gradually taken over marketing functions from joint Finnish sales associations. This did not necessarily lead to the end of cartel-like cooperation. When Enso-Gutzeit resigned from Finncell in 1979, the Finns reported confidently to foreign competitors that the price cooperation between the company and Finncell would continue and that the Finns would negotiate with foreigners ‘as a one group’.⁷⁸ This did not last. In the late 1980s, Enso-Gutzeit severed its remaining ties with Finnpap. According to the latter, the former allies were soon in the brink of a ‘market war’.⁷⁹

Yet, consolidation could also make tacit co-operation easier than before. The number of companies operating in the global markets declined drastically. Hence, few managers could form an effective ‘conspiracy’ if they were willing to do so. One could argue that they had even stronger motives to co-operate than before because the size and cost of individual paper machines increased substantially during the last few decades of the twentieth century. A decline in market prices could seriously hamper the profitability of a company that had just expanded its production by building a new expensive factory. Furthermore, the culture of co-operation that had for decades characterised the industry did not suddenly disappear just because the competition policies were tightened. When companies shared the desire to avoid competition, there was not necessarily any need for continuous contacts. The companies could just simply refrain from offensive actions in market places and follow the lead of market leaders when making decisions about prices.

On the other hand, there is also evidence that legislation started to become an effective deterrent during the 1990s and therefore had a real impact on companies’ actions. The fact that managers could get prison sentences in the United States made an impact even on the non-American executives whose companies often were in some way involved in the US scene.⁸⁰ EU competition law was nevertheless a more important factor for them because their main markets were in Europe.

New corporate amnesty or leniency programs could also effectively undermine the trust that still formed a crucial part of cooperation.⁸¹ The first firm that decided to work with the authorities could get an amnesty, which meant that individual members now had a strong incentive to defect from a cartel. This was not just a theoretical threat. The Swedish company Stora decided to cooperate with the EC authorities in 1991 in the latter’s paperboard cartel investigation. This decision understandably annoyed Stora’s previous cartel partners. Finnish paper giant UPM-Kymmene followed the same strategy in the spring of 2004 and submitted leniency applications regarding many fields of its business. This move created deep mistrust among the Finnish forest industrialists. Younger managers or people who had previously worked in other business fields had no personal experience of pulp and cartels, and this may have also gradually eroded the culture of co-operation that had dominated the pulp and paper industry throughout the twentieth century.⁸²

Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest Finnish newspaper, reported in December 2004 that the major forest industry companies, UPM, Stora Enso, and Metsäliitto, had introduced strict rules on contact with competitors. Meetings were to be documented and reported to superiors or corporate lawyers. Lists of forbidden topics were drafted.⁸³ These kinds of rules made all communication between the companies more cumbersome and probably therefore reduced incentive to engage both in illegal and legal cooperation.

Ironically, most of the new cartel cases initiated by UPM soon collapsed. What seemed illegal to those who confessed their guilt was not, or could not be proven to be, forbidden according to the officials who were supposed to investigate them. Peter Z. Grossman has pointed out that it is often difficult to separate illegal collusion from legal collaboration.⁸⁴ This is especially difficult in the case of informal ‘clubs’, which pulp and paper industrialists had for decades tried to set up. In the end, even the industrialists were confused.

Conclusion

The case of paper and pulp alliances expands our knowledge on postwar cartels and proves that they could survive for decades after the anti-cartel legislation had been introduced. Between the 1960s and 1980s, the cooperation and links between European paper producers might even have been more extensive than ever before or since. The companies were not willing to abandon their restrictive business practices but rather formulated forms of cooperation that would be less easy to detect. Old formal cartels were replaced with informal ones. The new cartels were based on mutual trust, personal meetings and communications, as well as on exchange of information, which helped companies to monitor the actions of their cartel partners. All this promoted parallel behaviour, and made it difficult for officials to prove that a cartel existed.

However, changes in European cartel structure did not reflect only changes in legislation. ‘Trust cartels’ replaced old formal cartels partly because many industrialists believed that new cartels would operate more effectively. Yet, cooperation continued to be one of the most important aspects of the business strategies of European pulp and paper industrialists. By limiting competition, firms could reduce risks, promote profitability and stabilise markets.

It was not until the late 1980s and 1990s that the EC legislation became a real obstacle to the operation of pulp and paper cartels and eventually forced the producers, as far as we know, to abandon previous modes of cooperation. New leniency policies effectively undermined the trust that had ‘glued’ cartel partners together, and made it difficult to create and maintain cartels. When the Nordic authorities began to harass national cartels in the 1990s, the remaining formal associations, such as joint marketing structures, were abolished. This was one important factor behind the merger and acquisition movement that led to the disappearance of most small Nordic pulp and paper companies. In the beginning of the twenty-first century, a few giants controlled most of the Nordic and a substantial part of the entire European production.

However, we have to remember that there was another factor that continuously threatened the existence of cartels: markets. Changes in demand and supply continued to create pressures which encouraged companies to cheat or even resign from alliances, and the traditional cyclicality never disappeared from pulp and paper trades.

The case of pulp and paper can serve as an example of how companies can circumvent competition legislation with the help of innovative cooperative mechanisms. This can encourage economists and historians to reconsider whether free trade between European countries was as free as was initially thought, as well as push scholars to rethink some of the theoretical and general views about cartels.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Academy of Finland’s Research Council for Culture and Society.

Notes on contributor

Niklas Jensen-Eriksen, Ph.D., is the Casimir Ehrnrooth Professor of Business History at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has written extensively on cartels, competition policy, business-government relations and international political economy.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this special issue as well as the two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

Notes

1. See for example, Levenstein and Salant, eds, Cartels, Jones, ed., Coalitions and Collaboration, Barjot, ed., International Cartels Revisited, Kudō and Hara, eds, International Cartels.

2. Fear, ‘Cartels,’ 281; Crouzet, ‘Conclusion,’ 350.

3. Schröter, ‘Cartelization,’ 142–153.

4. For example, Asbeek Brusse and Griffiths, Business and European Integration; Mirow and Maurer, Webs of Power; Gillingham, Coal, Steel.

5. See for example, Levenstein and Suslow, International Cartels, 1107; Connor, ‘Lysine Cartel’; Connor and Helmers, Statistics, 5.

6. See Fellman and Shanahan, eds, Regulating Competition.

7. Connor and Helmers, Statistics, 13.

8. Avain Suomen metsäteollisuuteen, 6–7.

9. See below, and also Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Industrial diplomacy’.

10. Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Industrial Diplomacy’; Sjöstrand, Rethinking, 391.

11. See sections ‘Clubbing’ and ‘Consolidation’ in this article.

12. Compare with Rahl, International Cartels, 243.

13. Rollings and Kipping, ‘Private Transnational,’ 419–421.

14. Evenett, Levenstein, and Suslow, ‘International Cartel Enforcement’.

15. Leslie, ‘Trust, Distrust, and Antitrust,’ 517–519.

16. Barjot, ‘Introduction,’ 39.

17. Cini and McGowan, Competition Policy; Goyder, EC Competition Law; Patel and Schweitzer, eds, Historical Foundations.

18. Rollings and Kipping, ‘Private Transnational’; Kaiser, Leucht, and Rasmussen, eds, The History of the European Union; Rollings, British Business.

19. See for example, Kuisma, ‘Government Action’; Heikkinen, Paper for the World.

20. Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Pragmaattiset kosmopoliitit’.

21. Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Industrial Diplomacy,’ 184–185.

22. Karlsson, ‘Cartels in the Swedish’; Jensen-Eriksen, ‘A Potentially Crucial Advantage’; Schröter, ‘Easy Prey?’; Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Pragmaattiset kosmopoliitit’; See also Karlsson ‘Cartels and Norms’, which shows that regulation and stability was favoured in the Swedish domestic market as well.

23. Goyder, EC Competition Law, 102–103, 123, 544; ELKA. Suomen Metsäteollisuuden Keskusliitto (SMKL), file 2116. Telegram from the Finnish Mission to European Communities, Brussels, to the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, 28 September 1988.

24. On the history and long-term evolution of international pulp and paper industries, see Lamberg et al., eds, Evolution.

25. Owen, From Empire to Europe, 155–159.

26. Suomen Elinkeinoelämän Keskusarkisto, Mikkeli (ELKA). Finncell, file 288. Finncell to Price & Pierce, London, 2 September 1961.

27. ELKA. Finncell, file 606. ‘Protokoll fört vid sammanträde i Stockholm med Sammarbetsrådet för Nordens skogsindustrier torsdagen den 28 och fredagen den 29 November 1946,’ and attachment (bilaga) 2: ‘Föredrag vid Samarbetsrådets för Nordens Skogsindustrier möte den 29 November 1946.’ Algot Bagge; compare with Rockefeller, The Antitrust Religion.

28. Wells, Antitrust, 123–125.

29. Jensen-Eriksen, ‘Industrial Diplomacy’.

30. ELKA. SMKL, file 2104. NH05.01. ‘PM Pohjoismaisen paperiteollisuuden kannanotoista EEC:n kilpailulainsääntöihin.’ Pekka Snäll 14 August 1972; Finnish Mission in Brussels to the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Affairs,12 January 1967.

31. ELKA. SMKL, file 2104. NH05.01. ‘PM Pohjoismaisen paperiteollisuuden kannanotoista EEC:n kilpailulainsääntöihin.’ Pekka Snäll 14 August 1972; UPM-Kymmenen Valkeakosken Keskusarkisto [UPMVK, The Central Archives of UPM-Kymmene]. Finnpap, file 677. Thomas Nystén, Finpap, to Lars-Sture Hartelius, Scansulfit, 27 November 1972.

32. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1593. ‘Protokoll fört vid Scannews och Nordprints Plenarmöte i Helsingfors den 2 mars 1977’; ‘Protokoll fört vid Scannews och Nordprints Plenarmöte i Helsingfors den 15 September 1976’; ‘Keskustelut Pariisissa 1976-03-17’. K. Hornamo, Enso-Gutzeit; ‘Scannews Stadgar 1976-11-15’; ‘PM beträffande Scannews’ samarbetsformer fr. o.m. 1977’. 14 December 1976; ‘PM beträffande Scannews’ samarbetsformer 1975.’ 19 September 1974.

33. See for example, ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1593. ‘Sanomalehtityövaliokunnan kokous 1975-01-08’. Enso-Gutzeit; File 1594. ‘Anteckningar från sammanträden i Wien den 4–5 maj 1976.’ Svante Vinell, Scannews, 11 May 1976; ‘Anteckingar från sammanträde i Köpenhamn söndagen den 29 februari 1976.’, Svante Vinell, Scannews, 1 March 1976.

34. ELKA. SMKL, file 1097. KD 02.07 ‘Rapport från arbetsgruppen för utredning av Scankrafts framtida arbetsformer (‘6-mannagruppen’)’. Scankraft 25 October 1971.

35. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1557. Scankraft News Letter, Sack information No. 14, June 1984; ‘Scankraft. Skandinaviska Kraftpappersinstitutet. Intern Promemoria’. Bengt Ingeland, 23 April 1979; ‘Scankraft 1977-03-11’ (a memo).

36. See for example, UPMVK. Finnpap, pöytäkirjat (protocols). Voimapaperijaos, työvaliokunta, meetings 29 March 1977, 29 August 1978, 26 October 1978, 20 March 1979; Voimapaperijaos, meetings 2 March 1984; 3 May 1984.

37. See for example, Heikkinen, Paper for the World, 12–13.

38. UPMVK. Finnpap, file 678. Finska Pappers och Kartong Ab to Thomas Nystén, 26 March 1973.

39. ‘Newsprint cartel and the men from DG4’. Financial Times, 2 July 1980.

40. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1564. ‘Scanpappin linerkokous 23.3.1972’. P. Lindholm, 28 March 1972.

41. ‘Ruotsalaisten ja suomalaisten kreppituotteiden valmistajien kesken vallitsee ‘rauhanomainen rinnakkaiselo’, joka kummallakin puolen Pohjanlahden tajutaan siten, että naapurin asioita ei mennä sotkemaan.’ ELKA. G.A. Serlachius Oy, pääkonttori, file 5669. Nils Björklund, G.A.Serlachius Oy, to Antti Rislakki, Converta, 26 October 1976.

42. Strange, The Retreat, 157.

43. Phone calls are mentioned in many other sources, for example, ELKA. Nokia Oy, puunjalostusteollisuus, file 3059. ‘Prissamarbete i Norge’. 15 March 1973; ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1564. Lars Thornander, Scanpapp, to factory managers and the members of Scanpapp’s governing council, 30 November 1967; Internal Enso-Gutzeit memo from Lindholm to Linna and Hakola, 31 May 1972; ‘Scanpappin Linerkokous 1972-05-16’. P. Lindholm, Enso-Gutzeit, 24 May 1972; Interview of Gustaf Serlachius, 16 February 2005; Many of the actual telexes have survived, see for example UPMVK. Finnpap, files 682 and 684.

44. ‘Newsprint Cartel and the Men from DG4’. Financial Times, 2 July 1980.

45. Cini and McGowan, Competition Policy, 76–77. The case OJ [1994] L243/1.

46. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 2630. EC press release: ‘Commission Imposes Fines on the Most Important Producers of Woodpulp for Violating the Competition Rules of the EEC Treaty’. 20 December 1984; ‘Court Annuls Commission’s Pulp Fines.’ Financial Times, 6 April 1993; UPMVK. Finnpap. Af. Laki-asiat EC-Pulp Case 1993. Judgment of the Court (Fifth Chamber) 31 March 1993. Court of Justice of the European Communities.

47. McGowan, The Antitrust Revolution, 32 (quote), 143, 147.

48. For example, ELKA. G.A. Serlachius, pääkonttori. The correspondence of Gustaf Serlachius 1978: Finncell. ‘Eräitä näkökohtia markkinatilanteeseen vaikuttavista tekijöistä.’ Lars Londén, 2 October 1978; ‘Skandinaviskt Cellulosamöte in Helsingfors 25.5.1978.’ Gustaf Serlachius, 26 May 1978; ‘Pohjoismainen kokous Helsingissä 25.5.1978’. Lars Londén, 22 May 1978; ‘Kokous Wienissä 2.-4.5.1978.’ Lars Lundén, 26 April 1978; Jensen-Eriksen, Metsäteollisuus, markkinat ja valtio 1973–1995, 113–114.

49. ELKA. G.A. Serlachius Oy, pääkonttori, file 5669. ‘Selluloosan myyntipolitiikka 1.9.1977 lähtien’. Internal Finncell memo, 1 September 1977.

50. Levenstein and Suslow, What Determines Cartel Success?, 11.

51. Oulun maakunta-arkisto [The Provincial Archives of Oulu]. Kajaani Oy, File 258. Finpap to N. Kanto, Kajaani Oy, 13 March 1953.

52. Jensen-Eriksen, Läpimurto, 162–164.

53. ELKA. Nokia Oy, puunjalostusteollisuus, file 3059. ‘Norjan hintakokous Helsingissä 13.6.1973’. L. Hernberg, Oy Nokia Ab.

54. See for example, ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, paperin ja kartongin markkinointi, file 262. ‘Matkakertomus’ 23 October 1975; ‘Voimapaperin hinnanalennusehdotus’. Finnpap, N. Lindblad, 5 June 1975.

55. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, paperin ja kartongin markkinointi, file 204. Minutes of Agents’ Meeting, Madrid, 9 October 1975. P. Silvennoinen, Enso-Gutzeit, 22 October 1975.

56. Compare with Leslie, ‘Trust, Distrust, and Antitrust’; and Fukuyama, Trust.

57. Mirow and Maurer, Webs of Power, 98.

58. ELKA. Nokia Oy, puunjalostusteollisuus, file 3059. ‘Notat från Prismötet på Norska papirfabrikanters felleskontor i Oslo den 4.5.1973.’ Oy Nokia A.

59. ‘Commission Decision of 19 December 1984 relating to a proceeding under Article 85 of the EEC Treaty (IV/29.725 – Wood Pulp’. Official Journal of the European Communities No L 85 /1.

60. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, paperin ja kartongin markkinointi, file 262. ‘Absorbex-voimapaperin hinnoittelu’. E. Tolvanen, 27 May 1976.

61. UPMVK. Finnpap. Helsinkiklubi 1973. ‘Helsingforsblubbens verksamhetsformer’. 8 January 1973, attachment (bilaga) 1 to the minutes of the club meeting on 12 January 1973.

62. UPMVK. Finnpap. File 683. Telex from Thomas Nystén to Gunnar Sandborg, 27 November 1974, and to Wendschlag, 11 November 1974; ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1593. ‘Aikakauslehtijaoksen kokous 1975-01-07’. Linna, Enso-Gutzeit, 8 January 1975.

63. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1593. Stig Lönnberg, Helsingforsklubben, to Kari Hornamo, Finnpap, 21 May 1976; These commentators were Bo Grafström from Stora Kopparberg Bergvik, a Swedish company, and Tord Lindahl, a Swedish lawyer.

64. ELKA. SMKL, file 720. AM 01.10 ‘Ranskalaisen paperiteollisuusvaltuuskunnan vierailu Suomessa’. C. von Ungern-Sternberg, 25 January 1983.

65. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, paperin ja kartongin markkinointi, file 138. B. Björkenheim, Finnpap, to Esko Vuorio, Enso-Gutzeit, 4 March 1978, and the attached table of quantities; ‘Puuvapaiden papereiden hinnoittelu’. Eero Tolvanen, Enso-Gutzeit, 20 January 1978 (quote); ‘Puuvapaiden papereiden hinnoittelu’. E. Tolvanen, 26 January 1979; File 262. ‘Hienopaperitilanteesta’. Eero Tolvanen, 17 November 1976; ‘Club des Dix’in kokous Oslossa 1974-11-20’. E. Tolvanen, 26 November 1974.

66. UPMVK. Finnpap, file 678. Thomas Nystén to Pekka I. Laine, 22 December 1972; Pekka I. Laine to Thomas Nystén, 28 December 1972.

67. ‘Thomas Nystén’. Carl G. Björnberg. Helsingin Sanomat, Muistot 2011. http://www.hs.fi/muistot/a1364353552740, accessed 19 March 2014.

68. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1593. ‘Production adjustment – Helsingforsklubben/Continental Industry’. Unsigned document from 1974.

69. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1594. ‘Memorandum of Agreement’. Draft, June 1977 (quotes); ‘Keskustelut Oslossa 1977-06-09’. Unsigned Finnish memorandum.

70. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1594. Salmi to Henrik Paersch, Kyro, 17 June 1977. Salmi writes that he has also approached other Finnish producers.

71. Jensen-Eriksen, Metsäteollisuus, markkinat ja valtio 1973–1995, 88; Heikkinen, Paper for the World, 378.

72. Jensen-Eriksen, Paper for the World, 436–437, quote from 437.

73. ELKA. Enso-Gutzeit Oy, keskushallinto, file 1596. ‘Plenar-kokous Tukholmassa 1980-12-02’. R. Mäkinen, Enso-Gutzeit, 4 December 1980.

74. UPMVK. Finnpap, file 735. Memo titled ‘Huomioitavaa’.

75. ELKA. SMKL, file 473. ‘Pohjoismaiden investoinnit hienopaperisektorissa’. C. von Ungern-Sternberg 14 August 1984 and the attached letter from F. Braun, 27 July 1984; file 544. The annual report of the Central Association of the Finnish Forest Industries 1986, 14.

76. Oulun maakunta-arkisto. Kajaani Oy, File 258. ‘Huomioita ja näkemyksiä matkalla U.S.A:ssa huhti-toukokuussa 1955.’ R. Erik Serlachius, May 1955.

77. Fellman, Growth and Investment: Finnish Capitalism, 1850s–2005, 179–180.

78. ELKA. G.A. Serlachius Oy, pääkonttori. Gustaf Serlachiuksen asiakirjat. Finncell – ulkomaiset kokoukset 1978–82; ‘Kokous Lissabonissa toukokuussa 1979’.

79. UPMVK. Finnpap, file 735. ‘Finnpap/Enso – Sanomalehtipaperit.’ H. Serlachius, 29 May 1986.

80. Interview with Gustaf Serlachius, 16 February 2005.

81. Leslie, ‘Trust, Distrust, and Antitrust,’ 519.

82. ‘Stora ryhtyi ”yhteistyöhön” EY:n kanssa’. Kauppalehti, 24 September 1991; ‘Murroskauden meininkiä’. Veijo Sahiluoma. Kauppalehti, 27 May 2004; Kuisma, Siltala, and Keskisarja, Paperin painajainen, 222–223.

83. ‘Suuret metsäyhtiöt panivat toimihenkilöidensä suut suppuun’. Jyrki Iivonen. Helsingin Sanomat, 16 December 2004.

84. Grossman, Introduction: What Do We Mean by Cartel Success?, 7.