British Polythene Industries (BPI) will co-operate fully with the European Commission investigation into price fixing in the polythene industry that has overshadowed its interim results.

Chairman and chief executive Cameron McLatchie said: In the past year weve turned the business around, fought off a hostile bid and fulfilled our promises.

This all came from a disgruntled employee at a firm in Sweden, there is absolutely no cartel.

BPIs sales dropped 12% on the same period last year to 208m, after it sold poorly performing operations, but pre-tax profits soared 75% to 8.4m.

McLatchie said the company expected to produce more than 100m of turnover a year from printed products, including pet food and horticulture sacking.

The groups borrowing rose by 12m to 91m, but this was after defending itself against the hostile bid from the Macfarlane Group and paying 35m to shareholders.

McLatchie said it could take as long as two years before the EC produced its results, but that BPI would be completely exonerated.

Theres well over 100 suppliers, 10 of those being significant players it [price fixing] could not exist, he said.

Story by John Davies