Vietnam Competition Council fined 19 insurance companies including Bao Viet Holdings, the country’s biggest listed insurer, for colluding to increase insurance fees for motor vehicles, according to a statement on the Ministry of Trade and Industry website.

The companies accounted for 99.79 percent of the country’s market share in motor vehicle insurance in 2008 when 15 insurers signed a motor vehicle insurance agreement that four joined later that year, Vietnam Competition Authority, a ministry agency said in the statement.

“The companies violated competition law when they signed the agreement,” according to the statement. The companies’ actions have had a negative impact on the country’s motor vehicle insurance market, Dinh Trung Tung, a representative from the competition council, said in the statement.

Each company has to pay 0.025 percent of 2007 total revenue in fines and 100 million dong ($5,237) in settlement fees, according to the statement. The insurers have to pay more than 2 billion dong in fines, Dau Tu newspaper reported without saying where it got the information.

The insurers, which include PetroVietnam Insurance Joint- Stock Co., Agriculture Bank Insurance Joint-Stock Co. and Bao Minh Insurance Corp., can submit complaints about the fines within 30 days, the statement said.