Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover have been given approval to pursue a US-style class action lawsuit in the UK against five car carrier groups by the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Units of MOL, K Line, Compania Sud Americana de Vapores (CSAV), Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) and sister company Eukor are named in the action. A claim against NYK Line by Volvo was withdrawn from the application.

The Swedish and British car makers are claiming for damages for losses alleged to have been suffered between 18 October 2006 to at least the end of 2014 from inflated prices, import duties and taxes on international shipping services for ro-ro cargo, and loss of profit and/or increased borrowing costs.

The president of the Competition Appeal Tribunal, Justice Peter Roth, said he was satisfied the tribunal is the proper place in which to bring the claim, although the claimants have issued a wider and partly overlapping claim in the Chancery Division of the High Court against a number of the same defendants.

He added that there is a reasonable prospect of success in the claim against the some of the defendants as it follows on from the European Commission imposing a total fine of €395m ($443m) against CSAV, K Line, NYK and WWL-Eukor in 2018 for violating the bloc’s competition rules.

When the tribunal appeal was first made in March, the car makers issued a statement which suggested the claim is for more than £150m ($192m) or up to £60 per vehicle.

Damages denied

The car carriers involved in the various cases have previously denied that they owed damages as they claimed the costs would have been passed on to customers.

Last week it was revealed that German car maker Daimler, which also took the car carrier groups to court in the UK, had discontinued its suit against NYK Line subsidiary NYK Group Europe with the two sides settling for undisclosed terms.

MOL (Europe Africa) had previously agreed to settle its part of the claims from Daimler, and the carmaker confirmed agreements have also been reached with K Line and CSAV. But WWL confirmed it has not settled with Daimler.

Daimler had claimed losses relating to alleged overcharges totalling $214m.

Volvo and Jaguar have brought their tribunal claim because different limitation periods for competition damages claims apply to actions in the tribunal than in the courts.

The European Commission decision found the shipping lines had coordinated prices, rigged bids, allocated customers, restricted capacity and shared commercially sensitive pricing information.

German car maker BMW is also pursuing damages in South Africa against car carrier owners including MOL, WWL and K Line, which it claims engaged in fixing prices.