STUTTGART, GERMANY — German antitrust authorities searched the offices of Magna International Inc., IAC Group and four other automotive suppliers Tuesday.
The companies are under investigation on suspicion they have been fixing prices since at least 2002 on car trunk linings, the Bonn-based authority said on Wednesday.
The cartel office declined to reveal which suppliers had their offices searched.
Magna and IAC said in separate releases that their German operations were searched as part of the probe. Each supplier pledged to cooperate with antitrust authorities.
Magna declined to say which location was searched while IAC said that its office in Krefeld, Germany, was searched by the antitrust authorities.
The searches were conducted simultaneously at companies in the German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia and Bavaria on Tuesday, the cartel office told Plastics News and Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche. Twenty cartel office investigators and 15 detectives took part in the searches.