The main car manufacturers and two commercial organizations must pay a total of 461 million pounds sterling for “collusion to restrict competition” on vehicle recycling, European and European regulators announced.
The British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said they had illegally agreed not to compete against each other when they announce the percentage of their recycled cars.
They also complicated themselves to avoid paying third parties to recycle their customers’ scrap cars, said the guard dog.
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He explained that the people involved were BMW, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot Citroen, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Vauxhall and Volkswagen.
Mercedes-Benz, also gone to the agreements, said the CMA, but it escaped a financial penalty because the German company alerted it to its participation.
The European Association of Automobile Manufacturers (ACEA) and the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT) were also involved in illegal agreements.
The ACM imposed a combined penalty of nearly 78 million pounds Sterling while the European Commission distributed fines totaling 458 million euros (382.7 million pounds Sterling).
Penalties were announced at a time of broader disorders for the European automotive industry.
Continent manufacturers are preparing for the threatened impact of prices on all their exports to the United States as part of the Donald Trump trade war.
In the combined fines of 77.7 million pounds sterling issued by the CMA, Ford had to pay 18.5 million pounds Sterling, VW 14.8 million pounds Sterling, BMW 11.1 million pounds Sterling and Jaguar Land Rover 4.6 million pounds Sterling.
Lucilia Falsarella Pereira, principal director of the application of competition at the CMA, said: “In agreement with the competitors, the prices you will pay for a service or the collusion to restrict competition is illegal and this can extend to the way you announce your products.
“This type of collusion can limit consumers’ ability to make informed choices and reduce companies to invest in new initiatives.
“We recognize that competing companies may want to work together to help the environment, in these cases, our door is open to help them do it.”