Almost half a billion euros for fifteen large car manufacturers due to cartel formation

Fifteen large car manufacturers must pay a fine of a total of 458 million euros because they have operated on for years as a cartel. That is what the European Commission has Tuesday announced.

These are major players within the automotive sector: Volkswagen, among others (127.6 million euros), BMW (24.5 million) and Toyota (23.5 million) are involved. Mercedes-Benz also participated in the cartel but is not a fine, because it informed the European Commission about the existence of the cartel.

With cartel formation, companies agree that they do not compete with each other on certain points, in order to artificially influence prices. In this case it concerned secret agreements about reusing old cars. For example, car manufacturers arranged that they would not advertise with what percent recycled material has been incorporated in new cars.

Car lobby

The purpose of this was not to let consumers consider information about reuse in their choice for a car, the European Commission writes. As a result, the pressure on these manufacturers to work on recycling remained less. The cartel cooperation took place between 2002 and 2017.

The manufacturers also agreed that they would not pay companies that old cars for reuse. Those companies would make enough profit, the manufacturers thought. Ultimately, all manufacturers involved admitted to be guilty, which reduced their fine by ten percent.

The European Automobiles Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) is also fined because of the ‘facilitating’ role that the lobby organ played in the cartel. Over the years, the ACEA organized various meetings on which the cartel formation between the manufacturers was devised.

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