The EU Commission on Tuesday hit five truck makers with its
highest-ever cartel fine of € 2.9 billion for colluding to keep prices
artificially high at the expense of consumers and on the implementation
of emissions technologies.
"We have today put down a marker by imposing record fines for a serious infringement,” said EU competition Commissioner
Margrethe Vestager,
sending a "clear message” to everyone that is willing to abuse
practices, such as the EU-based companies MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler,
Iveco and DAF Trucks, by "colluding on the pricing and on passing on the
costs for meeting environmental standards to customers.”
One of the companies, MAN, escaped the €1.2 billion fine, as being
the company that turned in the cartel to the EU Commission, resulting in
full immunity and an overall fine for the rest of the companies that is
more than double the previous record of any EU operating cartel.
Daimler was the company that received the biggest fine at €1.01 billion.
The highest cartel time until today was the €1.4 billion against a TV and computer monitor tubes cartel in 2012.
Vestager said that the above companies – together with SCANIA – were
coordinating prices and new emission technology releases on the timing
of introducing new emission technologies in 1997 and on passing on costs
of those new technologies. This tactic became a regular over time, as
the EU changed the environmental regulation over time.
In reality, the more stringent emissions standards have forced truck
makers to invest in expensive technologies among which the exhaust
treatment filters, while the companies pass that cost to the market
following bad practices.
"It is not acceptable that MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and
DAF, which together account for around 9 out of every 10 medium and
heavy trucks produced in Europe, were part of a cartel instead of
competing with each other,” Vestager said.
Volvo, having absorbed Renault’s truck market, and is at the moment
Sweden’s biggest company by revenue, received a €670.45 million fine and
Iveco, which is part of Italian truck and tractor maker CNH Industrial,
was fined €494.61 million. Finally, DAF Trucks, owned by Paccar, was
fined € 752.68 million.
According to the EU Commission, the record fine is already cut by 10%
as the four companies admitted the malpractices, resulting in this cut
in penalties.
However, SCANIA was not part of the settle so the investigation is
ongoing and yet no fine and no cuts have been applied. An EU official
declined to disclose more information about SCANIA’s case, confirming
that the talks between the two sides lasted for two months but stopped,
without concluding.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/eu-commission-imposing-e2-9-billion-record-fine-to-trucks-cartel/