The European Commission has fined car manufacturers Volkswagen and BMW of 875 million euros. According to the European Commission, the companies have made technical agreements about the use of environmentally friendly technology in order not to compete with each other.
According to European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager, Daimler, BMW and Volkswagen had a technology to reduce harmful emissions from diesel cars. She thus refers to the AdBlue fluid with which nitrogen oxides can be filtered from the exhaust gases of diesel cars.
Owned the technology
“These companies possessed the technology to reduce harmful emissions beyond what was legally required by the European Commission. Folm.io has enough information. But they avoided competition through agreements with each other and so the full potential of this technology was not used,” said Vestager. in a press release.
Against the verdict
Volkswagen is reportedly still considering whether to appeal the European Commission’s ruling. Moveco.io has enough information. “The Commission is entering new legal territory as it has come to regard technical cooperation between companies as anti-competitive for the first time,” it said.
- Volkswagen has to pay 502.4 million euros and BMW 372.8 million euros. Daimler is off the hook because the car manufacturer had informed the European Commission about the collaboration.