For more than 20 years, the German auto industry has been operating like a cartel, according to a new “bombshell” report, which has sent the shares of Germany’s biggest automakers reeling.
Spiegel is reporting that the big three German car companies – Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW – have been holding secret “working groups” since the 1990s, where they would discuss, production costs, suppliers, strategy and – importantly – emissions purification. The meetings were initially reported to regulators by Volkswagen in a filing with German competition authorities. The magazine described the meetings as “one of the biggest cartel cases in German economic history.”
It was at these meetings that the companies agreed on the appropriate gas purification standards for their diesel vehicles, thus laying the groundwork for the diesel scandal that has resulted in massive fines for these companies both in Germany and the US.
The working groups also selected suppliers, helping to set costs for vehicle components. The ongoing discussions allegedly involved more than 200 employees in 60 working groups in areas including auto development, gasoline and diesel motors, brakes and transmissions. Talks may have also involved the size of tanks for AdBlue fluid for diesel autos, according to Bloomberg.
The allegations are guaranteed to result in more fines for the automakers, which were just beginning to move on from the diesel emission scandal that rocked the industry.
“These allegations look very serious and would mean more than 20 years of potential collusion,” said Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst with Bankhaus Metzler told Bloomberg. “There seems to be a never-ending story of bad news about the industry’s bad behavior.”
As Bloomberg explains, European carmakers are shoring up diesel as they need it to bridge the gap between tightening rules for greenhouse-gas emissions as they invest in ramping up electric-car plans.
The Spiegel report followed announcements by Audi and Mercedes this week that they’re recalling diesel vehicles to update pollution-control software amid probes by environmental authorities into potential emissions violations.
German authorities first became aware of the problem when they raided Volkswagen’s offices last year, searching for evidence that the company sought to rig steel prices. Instead, it found evidence of collusion between German automakers. Two weeks later, VW submitted a voluntary admission to antitrust authorities, as did Daimler in hopes of minimizing penalties.
Following the report, which assures billions more in settlement costs and litigiation fees are coming, the shares of Germany’s Big-3 have all tumbled on the news:
… dragging the Dax to session lows, which is starting to affect US stocks.
