A cartel between Volkswagen and other car companies has been revealed in Europe.
The European Union's antimonopoly authorities have fined more than 10 automakers, including Volkswagen and Stellantis, a total of €458 million for participating in a cartel in the field of recycling decommissioned cars. This is reported by Reuters.
The European Commission revealed the collusion three years ago. The cartel operated from May 2002 to September 2017, and the Association of Automobile Manufacturers ACEA organized meetings and contacts between the companies.
It turned out that the car companies agreed not to compete with each other in advertising, which concerns the degree of recycling of their cars, not to disclose information about how much recycled materials are used in new cars, and not to pay firms for recycling expired cars. EU laws require automakers to bear the cost of recycling such cars, if necessary, which allows car owners to recycle cars for free, the note says.
The highest fine was imposed on Volkswagen — €127.69 million. This is followed by Stellantis (€99.5 million), Renault-Nissan (€81.46 million) and Ford (€41.46 million). Other fined cartel members included Toyota, Mitsubishi, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar Land Rover, Mazda, Suzuki and Volvo.
Mercedes-Benz avoided a fine for reporting the cartel to law enforcement agencies. The ACEA Association was fined 500 thousand euros. All automakers pleaded guilty in exchange for a 10 percent reduction in fines.
The day before, it was reported that the former Toyota plant, which is located in St. Petersburg and now belongs to Shushary-Avto LLC, completed 2024 with a net loss of 434.1 million rubles. The company noted that the company's management "has confidence and substantial certainty in the LLC's ability to continue its activities continuously."
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