- 2018-11-12
The Big Three German cars were searched by the European Union
Following the search of BMW’s Munich headquarters by EU antitrust agency personnel, on October 23, the corporate headquarters of Volkswagen and Daimler were also searched by EU investigators a few days ago. And this means that the German car company's "monopoly gate" incident, which has been silent for several months, has made the latest progress.
This news was quickly confirmed by the EU, Volkswagen, and Daimler. The EU issued a statement stating that due to the suspicion that several German auto companies have violated EU antitrust regulations, it sent officials to the relevant German automakers’ business premises for investigations on the day of October 23 and twice in the previous week.
It should be pointed out that, or in order to fight for immunity to reduce penalties, Daimler has previously applied to the European Commission to become a key witness in the monopoly case; and the Volkswagen Group has also voluntarily admitted to the supervisory authority that it may have violated the anti-monopoly law. Mitigating punishment.
In July this year, the German weekly "Der Spiegel" disclosed for the first time that since the 1990s, the Volkswagen Group and its subsidiaries have held secret meetings with Porsche, BMW, Daimler and other car companies in the form of different working groups to discuss technology and cost. , Suppliers and even the recent scandalous diesel vehicle exhaust gas treatment system has reached an agreement to eliminate competition and manipulate pricing. It is suspected of "one of the largest cartel cases in German economic history" and has been implicated in a high level of internal control of hundreds of car companies. The German car companies have been "shady" for more than ten years.
With months of silence, just when people thought that the storm was coming to an end. On October 20, the BMW Group confirmed that on October 16, the EU antitrust investigation team conducted a raid on the BMW Group’s headquarters in Munich, Germany. BMW said that the inspection was related to the accusations against five German car companies revealed in July, and no more details were disclosed.
Some insiders analyzed that the surprise inspection proved that the European Union did not intend to take this German car company monopoly case lightly or to make the matter small. If the monopoly is true, the German Federal Cartel Office and the European Commission will impose fines on the car companies up to 10% of their annual revenue. With the in-depth investigation and the expansion of the situation, the German auto industry is likely to face great pressure.
According to the reporter's understanding, according to relevant EU regulations, the first company involved in a monopoly to report to the European Commission and provide effective information can be exempted from fines. In addition, if any car company can be the first to provide important physical evidence to the EU, it may reduce the fine by up to 50%.
On October 20th, German Daimler also applied to the European Commission to be a key witness in the monopoly case, intending to exempt the fines by exposing improper behavior to the regulatory authorities. A few days ago, Daimler issued official news saying that the company has taken the initiative to expose possible antitrust agreements to the EU and submitted an application for exemption from fines.
Regarding the future direction of the investigation, the European Commission stated that the current investigation is still at a preliminary stage. It is worth emphasizing that taking an investigation does not mean that the company under investigation has committed a corresponding criminal act. When the investigation can be completed will depend on the complexity of each case, the degree of cooperation of each company with the European Commission and a series of factors.