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(Reuters) – BRUSSELS, July 8 (Reuters) – The European Commission fined BMW and Volkswagen Group a total of 875 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for violating EU antitrust laws by restricting competition in emission cleaning for new passenger diesel cars. The EU executive claimed the trio collaborated on technical advancement in the area of nitrogen oxide cleaning, although Daimler (DAIGn.DE) was exempt from paying a fine because it exposed the cartel’s existence. “Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche, five vehicle manufacturers, have the technology to cut hazardous emissions beyond what was legally necessary under EU emission rules. They did not, however, compete on leveraging the full potential of this technology to clean better than what is required by law “Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust director, stated. “As a result, today’s decision concerns how lawful technological cooperation went awry. We also don’t accept collusion between businesses.” Volkswagen (VOWG p.DE) said it was exploring legal action in response to the fine, claiming that the penalty was based on technical discussions about emissions technology with other automakers, which established a dangerous precedent. find out more “The Commission is venturing into new legal ground by treating technological cooperation as an antitrust breach for the first time,” the German automaker stated after receiving a fine of 502 million euros. “Furthermore, it is levying sanctions,” Volkswagen continued in a statement, “despite the fact that the content of the conversations was never implemented and no customers were harmed as a result.” BMW consented to the European Commission’s proposed settlement, paying a 373 million euro fine and claiming that it had been exonerated of employing illegal “defeat devices” to cheat emissions testing. find out more “This demonstrates that the BMW Group has never been accused of illegally manipulating emission control systems,” the company stated in a statement. (1 dollar = 0.8460 euros) John Chalmers, Douglas Busvine, Maria Sheahan, and Elaine Hardcastle edited the piece. The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles are our standards./nRead More

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