(adds French reaction, more Commission quotes)
LUXEMBOURG, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Europe's top court rejected on Thursday an appeal by five French farm organisations against fines totalling 11.97 million euros ($17.21 million) for fixing beef prices in the wake of Europe's mad cow crisis.
The case has dragged on for five years, starting in 2003 when the European Commission announced a fine of 16.7 million euros against six farming bodies for exploiting a depressed market and breaking EU competition rules at the same time.
France's largest farm union, the FNSEA, drew the lion's share of the total fine imposed.
After a first appeal, the EU's second-highest court reduced the fine in 2006, confirming the Commission's decision to penalise the unions for restricting competition since their actions "appreciably affected trade between member states".
After a second appeal, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected all the claims filed by the farming organisations, saying they would also have to pay legal costs.
"Since the appellant federations have failed on all their grounds of appeal, the appeal must be dismissed in its entirety," the ECJ judgment said.
After beef sales dropped sharply because of fears over a rising number of mad cow disease cases in France, French farming groups publicly set minimum prices for beef in October 2001, and also agreed to suspend or limit imports of all types of beef.
The prices were those at which slaughterhouses would buy cattle from breeders. The farmers had argued the agreement was temporary and that the aim had been to affect only producer prices -- not the retail price paid by shoppers.
At the time, the Commission said the penalty's size reflected the serious nature of the infringement of competition rules and that some farmers had used violence to force slaughterhouses to sign fixed-price agreements.
"A BIT AGAINST THE LAW"
FNSEA, and the other groups involved in the case, said the ECJ ruling was "unacceptable, intolerable, scandalous", adding that their action at the time was justified.
"We had to solve an intractable situation during which beef prices kept on tumbling," the unions said in a joint statement.
"Whatever happened, we remain proud of having tried to save women, men, breeders, a whole sector."
The Commission, the EU's executive arm which launched the legal case in 2003, said there was "no doubt" that organisations knew their conduct was unlawful.
In a statement, it said the unions were fined "for having taken part in a written agreement in the first place, and in an oral secret agreement in the second place, to set a minimum price for some categories of beef and to suspend or, at the very least, limit imports of all types of beef into France."
"This judgment puts an end to the case," it said, adding the Commission's original decision "indicated that it is not the job of trade unions to assist in the conclusion and implementation of agreements that disregard the rules governing law and order and, more specifically, the competition rules".
It also cited documents found by Commission inspectors in 2001 where the inter-union agreement was mentioned as "a bit against the law, but that can't be helped", the statement said. (additional reporting by Sybille de la Hamaide in Paris) (Reporting by Jeremy Smith, Editing by Peter Blackburn and Sue Thomas)