The landmark ruling handed down by Chinese antitrust officials this week was not the one executives at Audi, Mercedes-Benz and other multinational car companies had been bracing themselves for.
Since the beginning of this year, foreign car companies have been under scrutiny for possible “vertical” infractions of China’s 2008 AntiMonopoly Law, by allegedly fixing the retail prices charged by their downstream dealers and service providers.
Earlier this month, a senior official at the National Development and Reform Commission, which polices companies’ pricing practices, said Volkswagen unit Audi and Chrysler of the US had been found guilty of unspecified violations. A price bureau official in eastern Jiangsu province told the Xinhua news agency that some Mercedes sales offices had tried to “control the prices of spare parts and repair and maintenance services in downstream markets”.