Cartel probe looms over German car industry

German carmakers faced a brewing scandal on July 24 as suspicions grew they colluded illegally for decades, further damaging the industry's image and exposing it to massive financial risks.

News weekly Der Spiegel reported on July 21 that German carmakers Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Daimler had secretly worked together from the 1990s onwards on huge areas of car development, construction and logistics -- including how to meet increasingly tough emissions criteria in diesel vehicles.
Both buyers and suppliers of the auto giants suffered from the under-the-table deals, the magazine alleged.

For the world's largest carmaker Volkswagen, the diesel emissions scandal alone has already cost tens of billions of euros since it admitted to cheating on regulatory tests in 2015.

That is likely why the Wolfsburg-based firm, along with Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler, was one of the first to hand over details of the alleged broader collusion between the five firms to competition authorities, reported Spiegel, saying it had seen a VW document submitted to the authorities.

Regulators often treat the first company to report such infringements more leniently than the rest.
And Daimler has experience: it suffered a billion-euro fine from Brussels last summer after agreeing on prices for its trucks with three European competitors.

In theory, the maximum fine from the European Commission or Germany's federal competition authority could reach 10 percent of a firm's revenue -- or close to 50 billion euros ($58.3 billion) across all five car companies, based on their 2016 sales.

On top of that would come individual claims from customers.

Many buyers could have paid "a price that was far too high" for their vehicles,...