EU regulators fine truck producers 2.93 bln euros over participation in cartel

The European Union (EU)'s regulators Tuesday imposed a record fine of 2.93 billion euros (3.23 billion U.S. dollars) on a group of truck producers over their participation in a 14-year cartel of price fixing and other collusion.

The European Commission, the bloc's executive body, has found that MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco, and DAF broke EU antitrust rules, it said in a statement, adding that these truck makers colluded for 14 years on truck pricing and on passing on the costs of compliance with stricter emission rules.

"It is not acceptable that MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF, which together account for around 9 out of every 10 medium and heavy trucks produced in Europe, were part of a cartel instead of competing with each other," said Margrethe Vestager, the EU commissioner for competition, in a statement.

MAN was not fined as it revealed the existence of the cartel to the Commission. All companies acknowledged their involvement and agreed to settle the case, the statement noted.

The infringement covered the entire the European Economic Area (EEA) and lasted 14 years, from 1997 until 2011, when the Commission carried out unannounced inspections of the firms.

The Commission said truck makers held meetings at senior manager level by phone between 1997 and 2004 and from 2004 onwards, the cartel was organized via the truck producers' German subsidiaries, with participants generally exchanging information electronically. Endit