As various sources reported including Reuters, the French police and the French Anti-corruption agency carried out 12 searches..........

in the offices of  the manufacturers Legrand and Schneider Electric and  the wholesalers Rexel and Sonepar on the 6. September on suspicions  received by the Competition Authority and the Anti-corruption-agency in April.

The charge is price fixing between manufacturers and wholesalers, money laundering, tax evasion, bribery of representatives and public officials, abuse of corporate assets.

Other sources even say that there are reports of a secret agreement between the four companies limiting competition through price-fixing.

Should there be a guilty verdict; the companies would face a fine of hundreds of millions of euros.