Volkswagen AG (VW) and Daimler AG were inspected by EU antitrust investigators as the EU stepped up a probe into allegations that the German car industry colluded on technology for decades.
Just days after raiding BMW AG, EU antitrust officials visited Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg headquarters and its Audi unit’s offices in Ingoldstadt “as part of an announced review,” VW said in a statement.
Daimler also received “an announced visit” to its Stuttgart headquarters, spokeswoman Ute Wueest von Vellberg said by telephone.
Photo: AFP
The deepening probe is another challenge for the German auto industry, which is grappling with the fallout of VW’s diesel-cheating scandal and the disruptive shift to self-driving, electric cars.
Allegations emerged in July in Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, which reported that VW, Daimler and BMW met starting in the 1990s to coordinate activities related to vehicle technology, costs, suppliers and strategy, as well as diesel emissions controls.
“The Volkswagen Group and the group brands concerned have been cooperating fully and for a long time with the European Commission and have submitted a corresponding application” that might allow it to receive a reduction in any eventual fines, the company said in an e-mail.
“It is not yet clear whether the European Commission will instigate formal proceedings,” it added.
The commission in Brussels said it carried out visits at the premises of several carmakers in Germany, accompanied by German antitrust officials.
Regulators are concerned that the companies might have violated antitrust rules, the EU said in an e-mailed statement. It did not name the manufacturers visited.
Daimler reported a possible cartel as part of the EU’s leniency program that allows firms to dodge fines for being the first in line to report wrongdoing, chief financial officer Bodo Uebber said last week, confirming previous reports.
Investigators do not always need to visit a company’s offices to collect documents or copy hard drives if firms have already offered evidence in return for a reduced fine, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Aitor Ortiz said.
“We have here two companies claiming for leniency and we don’t know what information they are handing in, which products or services are involved,” Ortiz said, referring to VW and Daimler.
If officials “found some inconsistencies in the evidence gathered, they may prefer to go to the premises and collect the evidence by themselves to better define the line of the investigation,” Ortiz added.
EU Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager last month said that her officials are checking whether “completely legal cooperation” between German car companies is being confused with an illegal cartel.
BMW said it was raided last week in an inspection the EU said it started on Oct. 16. Reuters reported the Daimler visit on Monday.
BMW is irritated by its rivals’ conduct, BMW head of procurement Markus Duesmann said in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
VW and Daimler continued talks with BMW and did not disclose that they had informed the EU’s antitrust authorities about cooperation discussions.
The three carmakers worked together on a wide range of technology, including discussing the size of tanks for AdBlue, a liquid that helps neutralize pollutants in diesel exhaust, Der Spiegel reported.
More than 200 employees participated in 60 working groups in areas including car development, gasoline and diesel motors, brakes and transmissions, it said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”