Spain: €6 million fine for Nissan price-fixing

Spain's competition authority, la Comisión Nacional de los Mercados y la Competencia (CNMC), has fined Nissan's local distributor, a number of its dealers and two consultancy firms €6.03 million after an investigation into the exchange of commercially sensitive information leading to agreements over discounts and conditions of supply. The consultancy firms monitored the cartel-members' compliance and reviewed the dealers' monthly sales figures.

According to the story on the Law 360 website, the distributor will pay €1.9 million and two of the dealers over €1 million each. I had hoped to provide a link to material on the CNMC's website (www.cnmc.es) but I am unable to find anything relevant - I can order a coffee in Spanish but drilling down into the competition authority's website is another matter altogether. I will ask a friend for help.

Spain: CNMC penalises price-fixing cartel (with more still to come)

La CNMC multa con 41,1 millones de euros a 95 concesionarios de automóviles Audi, Volkswagen y Seat, dos empresas consultoras y dos asociaciones del sector, is the title of the press release announcing the imposition of substantial penalties following investigations that Motor Law reported in Spetember 2013. This forms part of a wider investigation into the car market, involving six sets of proceedings against distributors and one against a number of manufacturers.

In the present decision, the CNMC identified seven different geographical cartels involving the three marques. Their illegal conduct included  fixing maximum rebates and commercial conditions, and exchanging sensitive information. There were also enforcement mechanisms, imposing sanctions on dealers who failed to stick to the cartel rules: two firms of consultants who were involved in imposing sanctions and collecting 'fines' were also penalised.

SEAT and 11 dealers benefited from the authority's leniency programme and were not penalised. Four companies were investigated but not found to have broken the law.

The companies involved have two months in which to file an appeal.

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