EU to probe if ‘circle of five’ car makers colluded over emissions technology
Brussels — The European Commission opened a formal investigation on Tuesday into whether German car makers BMW, Daimler and VW Group colluded to avoid competition in developing clean emission technology. The commission, which oversees competition policy in the EU, said in a statement that it was looking into whether the car makers agreed not to compete with each other on developing and rolling out systems to reduce harmful emissions from petrol and diesel cars. "These technologies aim at making passenger cars less damaging to the environment. If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers," European competition commissioner Margrethe Vestager said. The commission raided the German car makers’ premises in October 2017 as part of its initial inquiries. The EU executive said its investigation focused on information indicating the that the "circle of five" — BMW, Daimler and VW G...
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