Truck makers ‘cartel’ to face landmark £2bn opt-in lawsuit over decade long price fixing scheme
A UK competition tribunal has given a trucking industry trade body the green light to bring forward a more than £2bn opt-in claim against a “cartel” of European truck makers, over allegations they fixed the prices of lorries for more than a decade.
The UK’s Road Haulage Association (RHA) trade body’s claim is set to be the first ever opt-in claim approved by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
The claim will see the RHA sue truck manufactures including DAF, Iveco, and MAN, for damages worth £2bn, on behalf of those who purchased or leased new trucks made by the cartel between 1997 and 2014, and old trucks made from 1997 to 2015.
The opt-in claim comes after the European Commission (EC) fined DAF, Iveco, Daimler/ Mercedes, and Volvo/ Renault, €2.9bn (£2.5bn) in 2016, over their running of a price-fixing cartel from 1997 to 2011.
German manufacturer MAN avoided a fine in the same case, after being granted immunity for blowing the whistle, while Scania is currently appealing the EC’s decision after the Swedish firm was fined €880m.
The tribunal’s green light for the opt-in claim comes after London litigation funder Therium first backed the RHA’s claim in 2017.
Acting on behalf of the RHA, Steven Meyerhoff, from law firm Backhouse Jones, said: “We look forward to progressing the claim as quickly as possible in order to obtain redress for those operators who are part of the claim.”