The Chinese government said yesterday it has concluded Mercedes-Benz violated its anti-monopoly law and charged excessive prices for parts, adding to a growing number of global automakers snared in an investigation of the industry.
Regulators found the luxury unit of Germany’s Daimler AG engaged in “vertical price-fixing” by abusing its control over the supplies of replacement parts, Xinhua news agency reported.
It said investigators from the Jiangsu Province Price Bureau found prices were so high that purchasing the parts used to make one Mercedes C class car would cost the equivalent of buying 12 vehicles.
An official said earlier that Volkswagen AG’s Audi unit and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV’s Chrysler would face unspecified punishment for violating the anti-monopoly law.
Chinese regulators have launched investigations of foreign auto, technology, pharmaceutical and dairy companies over the past two years using the 2008 anti-monopoly law in an apparent effort to force down consumer prices.
“Mercedes-Benz is a typical case of vertical price fixing — that is, the use of its dominant position in after-market parts to maintain price controls,” head of the Jiangsu Price Agency’s anti-monopoly unit Zhou Gao said.
It gave no indication what penalty Mercedes-Benz might face.
Yesterday’s report gave the clearest explanation to date of the grounds for the Chinese investigation of automakers.
Industry analysts have suggested regulators were motivated by complaints global automakers use their control over components suppliers to charge inflated prices.
Toyota Motor Co has said its Lexus unit is also under scrutiny. General Motors Co’s main China joint venture said last week it has responded to requests by regulators for information, but gave no indication it was the target of a formal investigation.
Other companies under investigation include Qualcomm Inc and Microsoft Corp.
Mercedes and Audi responded earlier to the investigation by cutting prices for replacement parts such as windshields by up to 38 percent. Chrysler cut prices of imported vehicles.
In a statement last week the EU Chamber of Commerce in China expressed concern foreign companies might be “disproportionately targeted” by regulators.
The chamber said it had received reports of “intimidation tactics” taken by regulators who pressure foreign companies to accept punishments without a full hearing or the involvement of their respective governments.
“Competition law should not be used as an administrative instrument to harm targeted companies or serve other aims, such as administratively forcing price reductions,” the chamber said.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電) forecast that its wafer shipments this quarter would grow up to 7 percent sequentially and the factory utilization rate would rise to 75 percent, indicating that customers did not alter their ordering behavior due to the US President Donald Trump’s capricious US tariff policies. However, the uncertainty about US tariffs has weighed on the chipmaker’s business visibility for the second half of this year, UMC chief financial officer Liu Chi-tung (劉啟東) said at an online earnings conference yesterday. “Although the escalating trade tensions and global tariff policies have increased uncertainty in the semiconductor industry, we have not
RSS