EU: EC slaps truck maker Scania with US$1 billion cartel fine

European Union antitrust regulators slapped Swedish truck-maker Scania on Wednesday, September 27, with an €880 million (US$1.03 billion) fine for price fixing with other major producers to rig the market at the expense of consumers.

EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who polices competition, said that Scania had colluded with five other heavy vehicle makers for 14 years to fix truck prices.

“Instead of colluding on pricing, the truck manufacturers should have been competing against each other – also on environmental improvements,” Vestager said.

The EU had settled with the MAN, DAF, Daimler, Iveco and Volvo/Renault on the cartel case last year, but Scania refused to co-operate. It says the company could have qualified for leniency if it had helped investigators.

MAN escaped a €1.2 billion (US$1.33 billion) fine for revealing the cartel, granting it full immunity.

Vestager said previous fines against the other companies on top of Wednesday’s announcement add up to a total of €3.8 billion (US$4.5 billion), “a record fine for a cartel in the EU’s 60-year history.”

Without Wednesday’s addition, the fine slapped on the companies last year was already the biggest and twice as large as the previous record.

Full Content: BBC

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