Road Haulage Association seeks compensation from truck makers after cartel is exposed

A virtual hat tip to one of my own students, Ben Wilkinson, for spotting this story on the BBC Business website today. It's gone straight in to my Edexcel Business A Level Theme 2 Scheme of Work for next year for the section on Competition Legislation.

5 truck makers have already been censured by the European commission for a price fixing cartel that lasted 14 years.  4 of the firms (Volvo, Daimler, Iveco & DAF) were fined a record 2.93 billion euros last year. MAN Group escaped a fine because it was the whistleblower. 

Now the UK's Road Haulage Association (RHA) is launching a claim for compensation on behalf of its members who presumably overpaid for trucks across this 14 year period.

The RHA believes that haulage firms were overcharged by £6000 per truck and 650,000 trucks were sold in the time period in question.  By these calculations the bill could reach an eye-watering £3.9 billion.  This time, MAN won't escape the financial hit if the claim is successful since this is to recompense haulage companies who paid more than a fair market price from all firms including MAN between 1997 and 2011.

Read the full BBC article here.