News

All parties presented their arguments in court, and currently experts are reviewing them. Three positive decisions favour the plaintiff, confirming damages in leasing and purchases. In October, the Federal Court of Justice will hear more appeals, but the plaintiff-friendly direction is clear. Most lawsuits (over 260,000 truck damages) are pending in Munich. Claim StatusMultiple lawsuits… Read more Truck Cartel, AT.39824 Update 

The UK Supreme Court has delivered a major blow to the litigation funding industry by ruling that agreements that entitle funders to a share of the damages awarded are unenforceable unless they comply with certain statutory requirements. The ruling affects a class action lawsuit brought by truck purchasers against truck manufacturers who had breached competition… Read more UK Supreme Court’s ruling impact on litigation funding and justice

Currently, all administrative proceedings are in the “Ruhendstellung” phase, which means they are awaiting the decision of the Cologne Administrative Court in the pivotal “model” case concerning the application of the Wegekostengutachten 2013 and 2018. This decision will have a significant impact on the cases in question. Based on the responses received from BAG/BLM and… Read more Up-to-Date Overview: The Latest Developments in German Toll Refunds (Toll-Collect) as of July 2023

Ever since the truck cartel scandal broke and the compensation proceedings were launched, there have been constant rumours that it is not worth claiming compensation because there could be “consequences”. We often hear that “we do not want to claim compensation because we are afraid that our good relationship with the truck dealer will be… Read more 6 logical reasons why truck manufacturers
will not sanction companies seeking
compensation in the truck cartel case

Eindhoven-based DAF Trucks reached a settlement worth €550 million in Q1 of this year with transport companies who overpaid for their trucks as a result of illegal price fixing. Paccar, which has owned DAF Trucks since 1996, made a $600 million provision to compensate transporters who filed damage claims due to the prohibited price agreements… Read more Cartelists have already set aside provisions of more than €2.5 billion

Transport and logistics company Waberer´s has resolved on 03.04.2023 one of the ongoing truck cartel cases through an out-of-court settlement with one of the HGV manufacturers involved. The company had initiated a compensation procedure at the Munich court in 2016 and the case had been ongoing for over 7 years.

The Uk Court cautions that although they received thousands of pages of detailed expert reports on all the issues, there were certain subsidiary issues, such as Complements and Loss of Volume, where there was disproportionate time and money spent on complicated analyses that were less justified. This increases the overall costs of the proceedings and… Read more UK Court urges for simplified approach when calculating damages

The latest developments regarding DAF’s counter-submission to lawsuits in the 3rd batch, which includes our cases. Our lawyers have analysed DAF’s submission and suggested further steps. DAF is denying 100% of the claims submitted by us and other claimants. They argue that the cartel did not affect the final price and that many claims are… Read more Progress of our pending case in the Netherlands

As we previously informed you, The Royal Mail Group and the BT  have brought a follow-on claim against companies in the DAF Group for engaging in illegal price fixing.  The Competition Appeal Tribunal is currently grappling with numerous issues related to expert testimony to make a ruling, as they highlighted in their broad outline: “(1) Causation… Read more Main issues related to expert testimony (Truck Cartel)

The UK Competition Appeal Tribunal recently awarded Royal Mail and BT approximately £17.5 million in damages from DAF Trucks for the Trucks cartel scandal, which is the UK’s first successful follow-on damages claim in the long-running Trucks cartel scandal. The Tribunal’s decision comes after 14 years long investigation which revealed that MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler (Mercedes-Benz), Iveco and… Read more Royal Mail and BT awarded over £17.5 million in damages against DAF Trucks

Truck Cartel, AT.39824 All parties have presented their arguments in court. The first results of the court-commissioned expert opinion have been presented and all quantum experts will review and send their statements by the end of May. Favourable Court Decisions There have been already 3 favourable decisions made. This is also unreservedly positive for the… Read more Report on Truck Cartel February 2023

As you may remember the end of last year was the final deadline, and most of the claims became time-barred with the end of 2022. Yet, you can still make a claim for compensation!In order to be able to continue supporting truck owners with their damage claims, our legal team has implemented a way to… Read more In 2023 it is still not too late to act!

As we have recently informed you, DAF has been granted one year by the court to prepare its response to the third group action (including the LitFin lawsuit). On 7 December 2022, our attorneys received DAF’s submission. The submission is 744 pages long, excluding annexes. It appears that DAF has adopted a strategy designed to… Read more The current state of claims in the Netherlands

The Cologne Administrative Court has made an order* with the subject matter of the dispute: The plaintiff is seeking a partial repayment of tolls for the years 2016-2020, citing a decision of the ECJ on tolls for the years 2010/2011. The date for the hearing is set for 28 February 2023. It will be heard… Read more Current state of Toll-collect refunds in Germany

The question is often asked: are state-owned companies, municipalities and their municipal enterprises as well as joint-stock companies, in contrast to private companies, legally obliged to initiate compensation proceedings against cartel truck manufacturers before the end of 2022, as the owners expect? Dr. Werner A. Meier, an expert at the law firm Marzillier, Dr Meier & Dr Guntner, helped… Read more State-owned companies, municipalities and public corporations – are they really obliged to claim damages from truck manufacturers?

In the Netherlands, our clients’ claims are in the third wave of plaintiffs. This allows us to follow the development of the case for the two groups of plaintiffs that will be tried before us and to prepare ourselves better. Our Dutch lawyers are therefore following the judgments of the Amsterdam court and evaluating what… Read more Judgment of the Amsterdam Court of 20.7.2022

On 01 August 2022, the ECJ clarified that refuse collection trucks and other special vehicles are to be included in the compensation under the truck cartel in the same way as other trucks. The Court thus followed the Advocate General’s Opinion (Case C-588/20, Landkreis Northeim) and rejected all objections raised by the cartelists. The truck makers wanted a declaration that… Read more European Court of Justice ruled: Special vehicles such as waste collection trucks are also subject to the truck cartel

Although truck manufacturers are extremely low-key (for understandable reasons) about the ongoing claims for damages by the truck cartel, in the background they have already had to reckon with the probably inevitable consequences. At least, this is indicated by the Mercedes Benz Group’s financial statements, in which it has already set aside a substantial reserve (more than 1 billion… Read more Mercedes has set aside reserves of more than €1 billion in preparation for litigation and legal risks

The explosion in costs and fuel prices that is taking place in Europe before our eyes is putting an extraordinary strain on truck operators, adding to the inevitable wage increases of recent years. It is safe to say that businesses have been unable to pass on these increased costs in full due to increasingly fierce market competition. Very few options are… Read more Only 4 months left to act for those who want to get compensation

Update: The motion for bias filed by Mercedes at the Dortmund Regional Court, Case No. 8 O 4/18 were dismissed. The Dortmund Regional Court was originally scheduled to pronounce a judgment against truck manufacturer Mercedes in an ongoing truck antitrust case in January 2022, but Mercedes wanted to use any means necessary to torpedo this in order to escape the threat of a conviction. Mercedes therefore felt compelled to resort… Read more Defeat for Mercedes. Motions to bias against the presiding judge rejected.

Counterparty’s procedural steps During the proceedings, DAF filed a motion to join the other truck manufacturers in the proceedings in respect of our claim. DAF has already made such a request, but this request has not yet been decided upon as the proceedings have been transferred to the District Court of Amsterdam. In contrast to… Read more DAF has filed a motion to join the other truck manufacturers in the proceedings in the Netherlands

The ECJ (Court of Justice of the European Union) has now confirmed that the limitation period only starts to run in 2017 (the year of publication of the Commission’s decision) and not already in 2016 (the year of the press release). ECJ held: “In those circumstances, it cannot reasonably be considered that in the present case, the elements necessary… Read more ECJ puts the plaintiffs in the Truck Cartel in an even more favourable position

After several years of uneventful waiting, recent developments in the RHA case have brought truck cartel compensation back to the spotlight in the UK. For those who may have missed the latest news, a ruling by the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 8 June 2022 has given the Road Haulage Association the right to pursue its collective action on behalf of hauliers… Read more Truck Cartel legal action – A comparison of cases in the UK and Germany

As we reported earlier, the European Commission imposed a fine of € 880 million on Scania in Truck Cartel case in 2017 after Scania, unlike the 5 other truck makers, did not cooperate in the investigation of the fraud. Scania’s claim against the European Commission was dismissed in its entirety on 02 February 2022, Case T-799/17. Scania has now taken the final option of… Read more Scania has filed an appeal

The (price-fixing) Truck Cartel lasted formally for 14 years from 17.01.1997 until 18.01.2011 and was only revealed to the public years later in 2014. The generally accepted view in the field is that damage can be detected up to the end of 2014, with some going further and predicting 2015 as the final date, but even the most conservative experts are betting… Read more The chronological history of the Truck Cartel

On 24th of February, the Advocate General made it clear in her decision that refuse trucks and other special purpose trucks should be considered just the same as general purpose trucks in the truck cartel compensation process. The early March published Opinion (Case C-588/20, Landkreis Northeim) details the facts and the legal reasons in 15 pages, while rejecting the truck manufacturers’ defence that these trucks with special construction… Read more Latest decision: waste collection trucks and other special purpose trucks are also entitled for compensation