AP reports that the European Union’s high court has upheld a ruling that Volkswagen must pay a record 90 million euro fine for seeking to prevent Germans and Austrians from buying cheaper VW and Audi cars in Italy.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
The rejection of Volkswagen’s appeal by the European Court of Justice appears to end the lengthy dispute between VW and the European Commission which imposed the fine on VW in 1998.
Volkswagen acknowledged it had sold cars cheaper in Italy than in its domestic market and tried to prevent distributors there from re-exporting them, the court said. The car company had tried to reduce the fine, but the court rejected VW’s demand.
“The main appeal must be dismissed in its entirety,” the Court said.
The fine is the largest that has been imposed on a European carmaker for restricting sales and hampering consumers from taking advantage of price differences between European countries.
