On Tuesday 1 April, the European Commission fined 15 major car manufacturers and the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) a total of around €458 million for participating in a long-lasting cartel concerning end-of-life vehicle (ELV) recycling.
Mercedes-Benz was not fined, avoiding a penalty of €35 million because it revealed the existence of the cartel to the Commission under the leniency programme. All the companies admitted their participation in the cartel and agreed to settle the case.
The Commission’s investigation revealed that, for more than 15 years, 16 major car manufacturers (including Mercedes) and ACEA entered into anticompetitive agreements and engaged in concerted practices related to the recycling of ELVs.
In particular, the Commission found that the parties colluded on a number of elements: - the companies involved agreed to consider the recycling of ELVs to be a sufficiently profitable business, and therefore not to remunerate car dismantlers for their service; - they shared commercially sensitive information on their individual agreements with car dismantlers and coordinated their behaviour towards dismantlers; - they agreed not to promote how much of an ELV can be recycled, recovered and reused and how much recycled material is used in new cars.
The goal of the manufacturers implicated was “to prevent consumers from considering recycling information when choosing a car, which could lower the pressure on companies to go beyond legal requirements”, explained the Commission in a press release.
ACEA was the facilitator of the agreement. The brands concerned range from BMW and Ford to Opel, Toyota, Nissan and Renault.
Stellantis (including Opel), Mitsubishi and Ford will pay €74.9 million, €4.15 million and €41.5 million respectively in reduced fines for cooperating with the investigation.
Link to case: https://aeur.eu/f/g75 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)