Truckmakers hit with record cartel fine Vestager’s ruling means manufacturers now face potentially crippling damages actions.

Margrethe Vestager, Europe's top competition enforcer, has hit the world's largest truckmakers with a fines totaling €2.93 billion, setting a new record for illegal collusion.

The five firms fixed prices over a 14-year period and agreed when they would roll out clean emissions technology.

Iveco, DAF, Volvo, Daimler and MAN — and their parent companies, which include VW — face potentially crippling damages actions from hauliers and other customers who have over-paid as a result of the collusion.

“They colluded on the pricing and on passing on the costs for meeting environmental standards to customers,” said Vestager. “This is also a clear message to companies that cartels are not accepted.”

The announcement was an important one for Vestager, who has struggled to close several big-ticket cases and has seen a marked drop in cartel sanctions on her watch.

Vestager's team's findings that the companies rode rough-shod over emissions limits comes at a sensitive time, given the fallout from VW's manipulation of diesel emissions testing.

"The exposure of the truck manufacturers exceeds €10 billion," said Laurent Geelhand, a litigation lawyer for Hausfeld, which says it is preparing lawsuits on behalf of some of the largest European truck fleets.

"This is a VW 2," he said, referring to the Dieselgate scandal that is set to cost VW as much as $15 billion in compensation in the U.S.

VW's MAN subsidiary blew the whistle on the cartel and so avoided sanctions. Its immunity will not protect it from damages lawsuits.

The prospect of huge damages actions will have been a major factor in the truckmakers' deciding to settle with the European Commission. Doing so won them a 10 percent reduction in fines and, more importantly, it will ensure that the decision, when it becomes public, is shorter and less damning.

A second VW subsidiary, Scania, refused to settle. The case against it continues.

Martin Hyde, a director at Claims Funding Europe, said his litigation firm had "instructed lawyers in the Netherlands to prepare and file proceedings on behalf of clients from all over the European Economic Area."

William Todts, director of freight and climate at Transport & Environment, said: "For years we have signalled a lack of competition and innovation in the sector. ... Truckmakers have to change, but so do regulators; they need to create competition on environmental performance.”