Antitrust body fines Volkswagen and Chrysler, denies targeting foreign firms

The mainland's top antitrust authorities defended a recent crackdown on price-fixing at a rare joint press conference in Beijing yesterday, denying foreign firms were being unfairly targeted, as fines totalling 280 million yuan (HK$353.9 million) were announced against German carmaker Volkswagen's mainland joint venture and US car brand Chrysler.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)-supervised price bureau in Hubei province said it was fining FAW-Volkswagen 248.6 million yuan for manipulating prices at its Audi sales unit, according to a statement on its website.

The NDRC's Shanghai branch also announced it was fining the mainland sales unit of Fiat-owned Chrysler 31.7 million yuan for price-fixing. The penalties, the first imposed on foreign carmakers, come in the wake of recent antitrust probes targeting car-parts suppliers.

German carmakers including BMW and Mercedes-Benz had also been found guilty of manipulating prices, the NDRC said, with their punishment to be announced later.

Xu Kunlin, director general of the NDRC's price supervision and antimonopoly bureau, said recent investigations had not targeted only foreign companies and had proceeded according to law. He spoke in Beijing with officials of the mainland's two other anti-monopoly regulators - the director general of the Ministry of Commerce's anti-monopoly bureau, Shang Ming, and Ren Airong, director general of the antimonopoly and anti-unfair competition enforcement bureau at the State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC).

Foreign business groups have voiced concerns over the past two weeks that outside firms have been unfairly targeted by mainland antitrust regulators. Xu described such concerns as "not accurate and groundless".