Ten major car manufacturers and two trade bodies are to pay a total of almost £78m for «colluding to restrict competition» over vehicle recycling, a UK regulator has announced. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said they illegally agreed not to compete against one another when advertising what percentage of their cars can be recycled. They also colluded to avoid paying third parties to recycle their customers’ scrap cars, the watchdog said.
It explained that those involved were BMW, Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Peugeot Citroen, Mitsubishi, Nissan, Renault, Toyota, Vauxhall, and Volkswagen. Mercedes-Benz was also party to the agreements, the CMA said, but it escaped a financial penalty because the German company alerted it to its participation. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (Acea) and the Society of Motor Manufacturers & Traders (SMMT) were also involved in the illegal agreements.
The penalties were announced as Europe’s car industry braces for the threatened impact of tariffs on all their exports to the United States as part of Donald Trump’s trade war. Within the combined fine settlements of £77.7m, Ford was to pay £18.5m, VW £14.8m, BMW £11.1m, and Jaguar Land Rover £4.6m.
Lucilia Falsarella Pereira, senior director of competition enforcement at the CMA, said: «Agreeing with competitors the prices you’ll pay for a service or colluding to restrict competition is illegal and this can extend to how you advertise your products. This kind of collusion can limit consumers’ ability to make informed choices and lower the incentive for companies to invest in new initiatives. We recognize that competing businesses may want to work together to help the environment, in those cases our door is open to help them do so.»
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