"The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation to assess whether BMW, Daimler, and VW (Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche) colluded, in a breach of EU antitrust rules, to avoid competition in the development and roll-out of technology to clean the emissions of petrol and diesel passenger cars," the commission said in a statement on Tuesday.
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The anti-trust probe in the EU started three years after reports that VW had installed software in millions of its diesel cars in order to cheat emissions controls.
"If proven, this collusion may have denied consumers the opportunity to buy less polluting cars, despite the technology being available to the manufacturers," EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager noted.
