Europe's second-highest court on Tuesday upheld European Union antitrust fines totaling €59 million ($84 million) on French groups Elf Aquitaine and Arkema for participating in a cartel in a paper-bleaching chemical.

The General Court upheld a 2008 ruling they had fixed prices for sodium chlorate, divided up market volumes and shared sensitive information in a cartel with several other firms from 1995-2000.

Elf Aquitaine later merged with French oil major Total and spun off chemicals group Arkema France.

The cartel also included Finnish Chemicals, Erikem of Luxembourg, Spanish firm Aragonesas/Uralita, Swedish group EKA Chemicals and Dutch company AkzoNobel.

Sodium chlorate is mainly used to produce chlorine dioxide used in the pulp and paper industry to bleach wood pulp.