The European Commission announced, this Tuesday, April 1, having inflicted a total of 458 million euros fine on 15 European manufacturers for participation in an agreement on the recycling of out of use vehicles between 2002 and 2017.
The Volkswagen groups (127.7 million euros), Renault/Nissan (81.5 million) and Stellantis (74.9 million) were the most heavily sanctioned, while Mercedes-Benz escaped a fine for having revealed the existence of the cartel. The main lobby in the sector, the Association of European Automobiles (ACEA) manufacturers, played a key role in this competition offense, “facilitating” the exchanges between the manufacturers involved, underlined the Commission. The ACEA was thus punished with a fine of 500,000 euros. Ford (fine of 41.5 million euros), BMW (24.6 million) and Toyota (23.5 million) are also among the manufacturers sanctioned.
“Today, we have taken firm measures against companies that have agreed to prevent competition in terms of recycling,” said competition commissioner Teresa Ribera, quoted in a press release. These groups have notably coordinated for 15 years “to avoid paying recycling services” for end-of-life vehicles, she explained.
An agreement system
Vehicles that are no longer in order to circulate must be recovered for their recycling, valuation and elimination, in order to reduce waste and recover materials such as metals, plastic and glass.
According to the Commission, the 15 groups sanctioned, as well as Mercedes-Benz, agreed so as not to remunerate the dismantling centers, considering that this activity was sufficiently profitable by itself. They also agreed so as not to highlight the quantities of recycled materials in new vehicles in order to prevent consumers from taking this environmental information into account in their purchasing decision. The objective was to “limit the pressure” of customers on manufacturers to go beyond legal requirements, underlined the European executive.