Several companies participating in cartels fined €546M by European Commission
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, in charge of competition policy, said: "The Commission has sanctioned several companies for colluding in the maritime transport of cars and the supply of car parts. The three separate decisions taken today show that we will not tolerate anticompetitive behavior affecting European consumers and industries. By raising component prices or transport costs for cars, the cartels ultimately hurt European consumers and adversely impacted the competitiveness of the European automotive sector, which employs around 12 million people in the EU.".
The European Commission found that the Chilean maritime carrier CSAV, the Japanese carriers "K" Line, MOL and NYK, and the Norwegian/Swedish carrier WWL-EUKOR participated in a cartel concerning the intercontinental maritime transport of vehicles, and imposed a total fine of €395 million.
According to the Commission, for almost 6 years, from October 2006 to September 2012, the five carriers formed a cartel in the market for deep sea transport of new cars, trucks and other large vehicles such as combine harvesters and tractors, on various routes between Europe and other continents.
In a second decision, the Commission has found that Bosch (Germany), Denso and NGK (both Japan) participated in a cartel concerning supplies of spark plugs to car manufacturers in the EEA and imposed a total fine of €76 million.
It was also established that the cartel lasted from 2000 until 2011 and aimed at avoiding competition by respecting each other's traditional customers and maintaining the existing status quo in the spark plugs industry in the EEA.
In a third decision, the European Commission found two cartels relating to braking systems.
The first concerned the supply of hydraulic braking systems (HBS) and involved TRW (the USA, now ZF TRW, Germany), Bosch (Germany) and Continental (Germany). The second cartel concerned the supply of electronic braking systems (EBS) and involved Bosch and Continental. The Commission imposed a total fine of €75 million.