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Truck Manufacturer Price-Fixing Class Action Lawsuit Overview:
- Who: Truck manufacturers Volvo, Daimler, Iveco, MAN and DAF are facing a class action lawsuit filed by truck owners.
- What: The truck owners allege the companies caused them up to £13 billion in damages through a price-fixing scheme that inflated vehicle prices.
- Where: The lawsuit was filed in the United Kingdom.
Truck manufacturers Volvo, Daimler, Iveco, MAN and DAF are facing a class action lawsuit filed by truck owners who say the companies caused up to £13 billion in damages by creating a price-fixing cartel for truck parts.
Weightmans law firm has applied to the Competition Appeal Tribunal to bring a collective claim for damages on an opt-out basis, The Telegraph reports, arguing that truck buyers could have been ripped off around £20,000 each.
Weightmans says 650,000 trucks were sold during the companies’ price-fixing scheme, meaning the claim could be as large as £13 billion and even more if the court sees that the cartel skewed prices after the scheme ended.
Laurence Pritchard, head of competition law at Weightmans, told The Telegraph that the law firm had hired an expert who would use economic models to prove how the drivers suffered losses, which he said could break new ground in collective claims.
“There have been damages claims rules with regard to competition law, but this is a new regime for collective actions,” he said.
In 2017, the European Commission found the truck manufacturers guilty of price-fixing over the course of 14 years. Then last year, the commission issued its final ruling, calling the companies a “cartel.” It said they coordinated pricing at factory level, passed on costs of mandatory emission controls to customers and delayed the cost of stricter pollution controls.
In a statement to The Telegraph, Daimler said it thoroughly assessed all customer claims and “will vigorously defend ourselves against unjustified claims.”
European Commission Made No Findings In Respect To Possible Damage To Customers
The European Commission has not made any findings in its decision with respect to possible damage to customers. This also illustrates the high hurdles that exist for plaintiffs.
“Plaintiffs must demonstrate in detail that the exchange of information in fact led to concrete damage,” the lawsuit states. “Considerable internal time and effort will be required to furnish that proof and customers will ultimately not be in the position to meet that threshold.”
In September 2021, Robert Bosch GmbH and Robert Bosch LLC had to pay consumers $2.24 million to settle a class action lawsuit that accused the brake manufacturers of price-fixing, which led to inflated vehicle prices.
The manufacturers called on Michigan federal court to approve the settlement, which saw $2.11 million go to electronic braking system class members and $128,000 go to hydraulic system class members – all of whom accuse the companies of inflating prices, rigging bids and allocating markets.
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