First ‘dieselgate’, now the emissions cartel
It’s here – the EU Commission decision that companies collaborating on technical standards may be deemed to have participated in a cartel. It’s a costly decision for the participants, who face fines of €875 million.
Now the wait for the Commission to make its decision public – it will be critical to understand whether the infringement turns on the companies having set standards at a sub-optimal level, or whether the theory of harm extends to sharing of technology with the aim of improving standards. Executive Vice President Vestager’s press statement refers to “legitimate technological cooperation [going] wrong” so companies collaborating to improve standards should fall the right side of the antitrust line. Article 101(3) may be unpopular, but is likely to be critical in such cases.
The European Commission fined German carmakers Volkswagen and BMW a total of 875 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for colluding to curb the use of emissions cleaning technology they had developed.
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