South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said Thursday it has decided to slap 64.38 billion won ($59.31 million) in fines on two local explosives companies for fixing prices for more than a decade.

The Fair Trade Commission said Hanwha Corp. and Koryo Nobel Explosives will be referred to the state prosecutors for criminal investigation.

The alleged price fixing took place across the board and covers explosives used in construction and mining and products used by the military as well as detonators and fuses.

The regulator said the two companies, the country’s only explosives producers, colluded to fix prices starting in March 1999 and stopped only in May 2012, after investigations got underway.

Illegal price collusion effectively prevented other companies from entering the market, and allowed the two firms to make more profits, the FTC said.

“Under the secret agreement, the two companies not only fixed prices that boosted profits, but cooperated to maintain the status quo in market share as well as work together to shut out new competitors,” an FTC official said.

Hanwha maintained 72 percent of the market, while Koryo had 28 percent. The profit margin rate of the two companies reached 15 percent when they fixed prices, but fell to 5 percent when the collusion agreement was halted.

Regarding the total amount of the fines, the FTC said that while price fixing started in 1999, the agreement was suspended from November 2002 to February 2005.

“Because they competed openly in the market during this period, the three years were not included when setting fines,” the official said. (Yonhap)