Brussels, 19/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - On 18 January, the European Commission confirmed that, working with the national services in question, it had carried out coordinated searches of the premises of a number of truck builders in various member states. It suspects the companies - which are, according to AFP, Scania and Volvo of Sweden, Daimler and MAN of Germany and Italy's IVECO - of having been involved in an illegal cartel, contrary to the anti-trust rules of the EU. All of the interested parties have confirmed the information and pledged to cooperate fully with the investigation.
Since September, these builders have also been involved in investigations by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the British competition authority, which suspected them of having concluded an agreement on truck prices in the United Kingdom.
In its press release, the Commission states that it has “reason to believe that the companies involved may have violated EU anti-trust rules”, but adds that the inspections are just a “preliminary stage” into an investigation and that it “does not mean that companies are guilty of anti-competitive behaviour”. It also states that there is no legal time limit to complete investigations into anti-competitive behaviour. (F.G./transl.fl)