–BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - European Union regulators levied about $350 million in fines against DuPont and three other chemical companies yesterday for fixing the price of a type of rubber used to make shoe soles, condoms and other products.

The EU said the cartel operated between 1993 and 2002 and that companies from the US, Germany, Italy and Japan colluded to agree on each others' market shares and set prices for chloroprene rubber.

Italy's Eni SpA faced the highest fine of $194.6 million, followed by US-based DuPont Co., which will pay $71.8 million for the actions of a former joint venture with Dow Chemical Co. called DuPont Dow Elastomers LLC. The operation was disbanded in 2005, when Dow withdrew. DuPont was separately fined an additional $15.6 million.

Japan's Denka Seiken Co. Ltd. was fined $69.3 million, while Tosoh Corp. was fined only $7 million because it cooperated with EU investigators.

German chemical maker Bayer AG, while a repeat cartel offender, was not fined this time, EU spokesman Jonathan Todd said.

He said Bayer could have been fined nearly $300 million, but got full immunity "because they were the whistle-blower and brought the cartel to the attention of the Commission."

DuPont and its joint venture with Dow Chemical got 25 percent reductions in their fines because they also cooperated. Eni's penalty was raised 60 percent because it was a repeat offender.

Eni declined to comment. DuPont said it was "disappointed" with the fine.

"We feel this matter has been wrongly decided," the Wilmington, Delaware-based company said in a statement. DuPont said it would "evaluate the ruling and options" once the decision was forwarded to it by the EU. The company added that it had "cooperated fully" in the investigation and was "committed to meeting the highest standards of ethical and legal compliance."

Dow Chemical said in a statement from its British operations base that it was not liable for the DuPont Dow Elastomers fine. Under terms agreed to with DuPont in 2005, it said, DuPont would take care of "any potential...anti-trust liabilities" for their former joint venture, which was renamed DuPont Performance Elastomers.

Neither Denka Seiken nor Tosoh offered a comment on the fines. Tosoh spokesman Etsuya Ikeda said the company had not yet received official notice of the fine, and would review it carefully with its lawyers once they did.

Bayer spokesman Markus Loeber confirmed that the company had assisted the Commission, but said he could not comment because Bayer had also yet to receive a written statement from the EU.

"The company very much regrets the legal violations in the past," Mr. Loeber said, adding that Bayer introduced legal compliance and corporate responsibility guidelines in 1999 and tightened them in 2004. "Violations of this corporate compliance program will not be tolerated."

Chloroprene rubber is a synthetic rubber mainly used to make hoses, transmission belts, and as latex used to make diving equipment, condoms and shoe soles. Todd said consumers and customers of the companies probably saw prices inflated by 10 percent due to the price fixing.

According to the European Commission, the companies held "regular meetings to discuss prices, exchange sensitive commercial information" and to review their "illegal agreements."

Todd said the nine-year-long cartel "was a very serious infringement of our rules," adding it was the third such price-fixing scheme uncovered in the rubber industry. The EU uncovered a synthetic rubber cartel in 2006 and a rubber chemicals cartel in 2005.

"These practices constitute very serious infringements of...anti-trust rules," the EU's executive arm said in a statement.

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said it was "particularly disappointing" that the rubber industry "has still not learned its lessons about avoiding cartels."

Under EU competition law, the Commission can order companies found guilty of price fixing to pay fines of up to 10 percent of their worldwide annual sales.