Brussels, 19/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 July, the European Commission handed down a fine of a record sum of €2.9 billion to the 'truck cartel'.
As the Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, made clear, this amount is twice the previous record fine imposed in 2012. “But there are good reasons for this. In particular, this cartel concerns a very large market and continued for a long period of time”, she explained. The cartel started in 1997 at a meeting of “senior executives” of truck producers in a “cosy hotel” in Brussels. For 14 years, the producers MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF, which together produce 9 out of every 10 medium- and heavy-duty trucks in Europe, coordinated prices at the level of gross pricelists, the timetable for the introduction of emission technologies and the transfer to customers of the costs of these technologies.
On the last of these points, the Commission explains that the companies discussed how to respond to increasingly tight European emissions standards. The cartel did not aim to avoid or get round these standards, but to coordinate the prices of new technologies and ultimately to transfer the costs of these two clients.
The Commission notified the companies in question of its objections in November 2014 and nonetheless decided to resolve the matter through a settlement. “It is certainly a novelty that we have a settlement after the statement of objections”, the Commissioner explained, adding that the aim was to free up the human resources of her services to work on other dossiers, but it was also a question of speed, to allow private damages actions to be brought more quickly at national level. Scania is not, however, included in the settlement procedure announced on Tuesday and investigations into this company continue. MAN blew the whistle on the existence of the cartel and thereby escaped a fine of €1.2 billion. Daimler cops for the steepest fine, of €1 billion, followed by DAF, which has been fined €752 million, then Volvo/Renault, €670 million. Lastly, Iveco is fined €494 million. However, all of these companies saw their fines reduced as they cooperated with the Commission and acknowledged their involvement in the cartel and hence their liability. (Original version in French by Elodie Lamer)