Years of agreements
EU imposes 460 million cartel penalty against car manufacturers
Car manufacturers have illegally agreed to the disadvantage of recycling companies and consumers for years. You therefore have to pay millions.
The EU Commission has imposed a antitrust of around 460 million euros against numerous car manufacturers. You have participated in a cartel for years, as the EU Commission announced. While VW has to pay the highest penalty with around 127 million euros, BMW will hit a criminal level of around 25 million euros. According to the Commission, Mercedes-Benz had disclosed the cartel and therefore has no punishment. Actually, around 35 million would have been due.
Specifically, it is about cases between 2002 and 2017. The industry association ACEA and 16 large car manufacturers have said to have made competitive agreements. In doing so, they would have made illegal agreements that companies should not be paid for, for example, to dismantle used vehicles. The carmakers also exchanged their individual agreements with car -compartment drives with each other and coordinated their behavior.
In addition, they would have agreed not to advertise how well their cars could be recycled so that consumers could not take this information into account when choosing a vehicle. In this way, pressure on the companies should be reduced to go beyond the legal requirements.
Numerous manufacturers affected
VW said: “Volkswagen AG takes note of today’s decision of the European Commission.” The company worked with the Commission without restrictions throughout the investigation.
In addition to the large German manufacturers, the punishments also hit numerous more. For example, the Opel mother Stellantis has to pay almost 75 million, Opel itself almost 25 million. Actually, the punishments should have been twice as high, but they were granted a discount because they worked with the EU Commission. According to the Commission, ten percent of the fines was issued to everyone involved because they would have recognized their participation in the cartel and their liability.
Penalties in the double -digit million range also had to pay Ford (more than 40 million) and Toyota (almost 24 million). In addition, the ACEA lobby association has to pay a penalty of 500,000 euros. The investigation showed that ACEA promoted the cartel by organizing numerous meetings and contacts between the manufacturers involved.
Great Britain also impose punishments
The British competition authority also imposed punishments of more than £ 77 million (around 93 million euros). BMW and VW, as is the result of a message from the Competition and Markets Authority, among the car manufacturers. Mercedes-Benz was also excluded from a punishment.
dpa
Source: Stern
