BRUSSELS (From news reports) -- European Commission regulators have raided publisher Euromoney's newly-acquired specialist unit covering the paper industry as part of an investigation into the kraft paper and industrial paper sack sector.

Euromoney confirmed the "inspection" by antitrust authorities at the Brussels office of RISI, the US business it bought last year for $125m, and said it was "committed to working fully" with the probe.

The European Competition Commission confirmed "its officials carried out an unannounced inspection at the premises of a company operating in the kraft paper sector".

It added that Tuesday's raid was part of an investigation that also involved unannounced visits in March 2016 and March 2017 to companies in the sector, and were part of a probe into anti-competitive practices including price fixing and customer allocation.

Such investigations can last years in complex cases and companies found guilty of price fixing can be fined up to 10 per cent of their global sales.

RISI is a price reporting agency for the forest products market and organises industry events.

It is not unusual for competition authorities to look into industry meetings, according to a person familiar with previous competition investigations. As a place where companies meet to exchange information, officials can seek to find out if that might stray into anti-competitive behaviour.

Platts, an oil price reporting agency, was raided by EU authorities in 2013, along with Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Statoil, as part of a probe into oil benchmarks in the wake of the scandal over the manipulation of financial benchmarks.

At the time of the company's takeover, Euromoney noted that RISI's "price indices are critical to the daily business operations and trading activities of major paper and board, packaging and other forest-product companies".

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