Truck makers must pay up for price fixing
European Commission fines manufacturers almost €3bn for forming cartel and rigging prices, writes Michael Taylor
THE European Commission (EC) has hit some of the continent’s biggest truck manufacturers with huge fines after it smashed a price-fixing cartel.
All of the truck makers fingered by the EC admitted their liability and agreed to pay €2.93bn (R46.25bn) in fines, including Italy’s Iveco, Germany’s Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), the Swedish/French Volvo/Renault alliance and DAF.
MAN was also found guilty in the investigation, but received no fine as it brought the issue to the EC’s attention in the first place, while Scania remains under investigation for price fixing.
Daimler, maker of MercedesBenz trucks, was hit hardest, fined more than €1bn, while DAF was hit for €753m, Volvo/Renault €640m and Iveco €495m.
The EC found the companies had broken European Union law by forming a cartel to rig the gross-list prices and passing on emissions technology costs to consumers between 1997 and 2011. The antitrust finding relates to medium (six to 16 tonnes) and heavy (more than 16 tonnes) trucks.
“We have today put down a marker by imposing record fines for a serious infringement,” the EC’s commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, said.
“In all, there are more than 30-million trucks on European roads which account for about three quarters of inland transport of goods in Europe and play a vital role for the European economy.
“It is not acceptable that MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF, which together account for about nine out of every 10 medium and heavy trucks produced in Europe, were part of a cartel instead of competing with each other.
“For 14 years they colluded on the pricing and on passing on the costs for meeting environmental standards to customers. This is also a clear message to companies that cartels are not accepted.”
The fines were levied according to each company’s European sales during the cartel’s heyday, meaning MAN dodged €1.2bn in fines by sparking the investigation with its 2011 application for immunity from prosecution.
The practice continued until 2011, when the EC investigating team carried out unannounced inspections of the truck makers. It found they colluded at senior manager level, often at trade fairs and via phone calls. After 2004, the cartel functioned out of the German market subsidiaries of all the companies involved, usually via e-mail.