TWO West Yorkshire bus companies broke competition law by deciding to share routes between themselves.
Arriva and FirstGroup were slammed by the Office of Fair Trading after it found staff had met privately to thrash out an agreement.
A probe was launched in July 2000 after an anonymous letter alleging the two companies had been involved in route-swapping in Leeds.
The OFT said both would have faced heavy fines but for the fact they had decided to co-operate with its investigation.
Arriva will have to pay £203,632, down 36% from its original fine, while FirstGroup has escaped any financial penalty.
The OFT would have set FirstGroup a fine of £529,852 but this has been waived as the bus operator decided to work with the inquiry before Arriva.
