BRUSSELS: Daimler’s Spanish unit could be chargeable for damages sought by corporations affected by the German carmaker’s function in a truck cartel sanctioned by EU antitrust regulators 5 years in the past, an adviser to Europe’s high courtroom mentioned on Thursday.The European Fee in 2016 handed out a then document 2.9 billion euros to the cartel which included Daimler, Swedish firm Volvo, Iveco, which is a part of Italian truck and tractor maker CNH Industrial, and DAF Vehicles, owned by U.S. firm Paccar.

“A nationwide courtroom can order a subsidiary firm to pay compensation for the hurt brought on by the anti-competitive conduct of its guardian firm in a case the place the Fee has imposed a tremendous solely on that guardian firm,” Giovanni Pitruzzella, advocate common on the Luxembourg-based Courtroom of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) mentioned in a non-binding opinion.

“For that to be the case, the 2 corporations should have operated available on the market as a single enterprise and the subsidiary should have contributed to the achievement of the target and the materialisation of the results of that conduct,” he mentioned.