BMW fined in Switzerland over competition concerns
Switzerland is a country that has it pretty bad on the way cars are sold, to be owned, taxed and so on. Despite this, the Swiss do like their cars.
I suppose you have to in a country where car passion is borderline on illegal, willingness to change cars is something worth fighting for.
BMW
This is where the problems came up. Recently, due to to conversion rates, the Swiss began shopping cars in neighboring countries such as Germany and France.
Since the Euro was much cheaper than usual and due to adjusted pricing policies, the new shoppers could save thousands on the purchase of a new car.
At this point, BMW intervened to cut some of their losses and to keep Swiss customers from buying their cars outside their country of residence.
BMW 1 Series
Swiss regulators on competition quickly caught on to this situation and eventually ended up fining the Bavarian car maker for the unpleasant situation.
We’re not very sure of the sort of fines imposed in such situations but we do know how much BMW was charged for this problem.
It was a 156 million Swiss francs fine, that translates into roughly 163 million USD that the Swiss Competition Commission imposed.
BMW 3 Series
The charge laid out is impeding direct and parallel imports. BMW have responded by saying that they’ll be fighting the decision in a Swiss court.
According to BMW their dealer agreements work under the European Economic Area’s legislation and do not have an impact on actual competition in Switzerland.
