Hundreds of construction firms have signed up to take part in a legal claim against firms involved in a trucking cartel – with others being encouraged to get involved, according to the action’s organiser.
The Road Haulage Association (RHA) – which represents coach, van and haulage firms in the UK – is leading a lawsuit against some of the biggest trucking firms in the world. It says the claim could be worth up to £2bn.
It is a “collective action” case, meaning that the RHA can represent numerous firms and individuals in court. The case is open to any firms registered in the UK, not just members of the RHA.
A spokesperson for the RHA told Construction News that “hundreds of construction firms” had already signed up for representation in the case and that the total includes a mixture of contractors, subcontractors and construction material firms.
They also encouraged more firms to sign up for legal representation “as soon as possible” here. The sooner they get involved, the more time they will have to complete the full, opt-in process. The deadline for that is 28 February.
Earlier this year, the RHA got the go-ahead from the Competition Appeal Tribunal to proceed with the legal case against companies within the MAN, DAF and Iveco groups – after the European Commission found five truck manufacturers, including those three, had colluded on pricing over a 14-year period.
The RHA estimates that 600,000 trucks in the UK were affected by the trucking cartel.
Though the RHA case is against the three trucking groups in particular, the claim covers all makes of trucks, not just those manufactured by the three groups.
To be involved, firms do not have to be registered members of the RHA. UK-based firms and individuals who leased new and used trucks of six tonnes or over are eligible for representation.
The representation is open to firms who leased new trucks between 17 January 1997 and 31 January 2014 – and firms who leased old trucks between 17 January 1997 and 31 January 2015.
Personal representatives of anyone who fitting the criteria but died on or after 17 July 2018 can also get involved. It does not cost anything to sign up for representation.
A date for the trial, in which the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) will decide whether the defendants need to pay damages, has not yet been set.
RHA managing director Richard Smith said: “The RHA is dedicated to the interests of the road haulage sector, and we are proud to be bringing this claim in order to secure compensation for companies and individuals and to deter cartelist behaviour and poor corporate governance in our industry.”
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, fined the five truck manufacturers a total of €2.93bn (£2.44bn) for price collusion in 2016.
‘A serious infringement’
The European Commission found in 2016 that Man, Volvo, Renault, Daimler, Iveco and DAF had colluded on truck pricing, and also on passing on the costs of compliance with stricter emission rules, for 14 years from 1997 to 2011.
The commission said it imposed the “record fine” on all these firms apart from Man, which had revealed the existence of the cartel to the commission and received “full immunity” from the investigation.
At the time, Margrethe Vestager, the then EU competition commissioner, said the commission had “put down a marker” with what was then a record fine for “a serious infringement”. She added it was “not acceptable” that the firms – which manufactured nine out of ten medium and heavy trucks in Europe – were part of a cartel.
“This is also a clear message to companies that cartels are not accepted,” she said.
The investigation was specifically into the manufacturing of medium trucks – which weigh between six and 16 tonnes – and heavy trucks weighing more than 16 tonnes. The firms had coordinated the factory prices of trucks – known as “gross lists” – which typically is the basis of truck prices, with further adjustments based on local and national pricing.
Following Man’s application for immunity in 2011, the Commission carried out unannounced inspections on the firms, confirming the cartel’s existence.
The commission also found that the trucking firms coordinated the timing of the introduction of emission technologies for the trucks, to comply with the new, stricter European standards, and also coordinated when customers would need to pay for the new emissions technologies.
Some of the firms’ senior managers held cartel meetings between 1997 and 2004, sometimes at trade fairs, according to the commission.
It reduced the fines for Volvo/Renault, Daimler and Iveco by 40 per cent, 30 per cent, and 10 per cent respectively for cooperating with the investigation. The scale of the reductions, the commission said, reflected the timing of their cooperation and how useful their evidence was in proving the cartel’s existence.
Additionally, the commission reduced the fines for all the firms (Volvo/Renault, Daimler, DAF and Iveco) by 10 per cent each, after they acknowledged “their participation in the cartel and of their liability in this respect”.
