THE offices of three leading oil companies, one in the UK, have been raided as part of an official investigation into suspected price-fixing.

The European Commission said a series of unannounced inspections was carried out by its officials at the offices of Shell, BP and Statoil in one of the largest cross-border actions since the Libor rigging scandal.

The companies are being investigated over suspected anti-competitive agreements related to the submission of prices to Platts, the world's leading oil-pricing agency.

"Officials carried out unannounced inspections at the premises of several companies active in and providing services to the crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels sectors," a statement from the commission said.

"The commission has concerns that the companies may have colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price-reporting agency to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products," the statement added.

The authority pointed out that even small distortions of assessed prices could have a "huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers".

A spokesman for BP said: "BP is one of the companies that is subject to an investigation that was announced earlier today by the European Commission. We are co-operating fully and unable to comment further."

Norwegian company Statoil's office in Stavanger was inspected while Shell offices in London and Rotterdam were visited.