The European Commission on Wednesday handed out a total of 546 million euros in fines to car shipping groups and car parts suppliers for anti-competitive behaviour, the EU executive said in a written statement.
The Commission, in its role as competition supervisor in the European Union, said it had fined shipping groups CSAV, K-Line, WWL-EUKOR and NYK 395 million euros for having formed a cartel in sea transport of new cars and trucks.
Shipping company MOL was not fined as it had alerted the Commission to the cartel.
German group Bosch and Japanese supplier NGK were fined 76 million euros for exchanging information on prices in the spark plug market, while Bosch and Continental were jointly fined another 75 million for discussing sales of braking systems to German car makers.
At a news conference in Brussels, European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager added that these decisions were not related to a separated investigation on some German car manufacturers that might have broken EU competition rules.
