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The National Competition Commission, or CNC, has opened disciplinary proceedings against the companies Repsol, Cepsa, BP, Disa, Meroil and Galp, as a result of various reports already filed in which it is suggested that they may have a collective agreement for price fixing in the motor fuel sector. In a statement, the agency announced the initiation of two disciplinary acts, one against all of the companies named for possible anticompetitive bilateral conduct, and another against Repsol, Cepsa and BP, for coordinating pricing between the companies, including independent operators on their networks. The agency has also said that the investigation will take a maximum of 18 months to complete, and was started due to lack of competition in the sector, finding significant increases in fuel prices, in a context of general price levels, higher than those recorded in neighbouring countries.

The DGT traffic department has this week warned Spanish drivers that driving through France will no longer be as easy in terms of avoiding traffic sanctions and fines, as from the 1st of April, French authorities will register offences by none native vehicles, forwarding the complaint to the offending driver or vehicle owner in their own country, in this case, Spain. The same will also happen in reverse, with Spanish authorities able to sanction French drivers for traffic violations, marking the first active agreements for that the European Union is trying to achieve, of a single method of fining offending drivers in all countries.

The Extremadura region of Spain has bolstered its commitment to sustainable energy, announcing that rechargeable points for electronic cars will be free to use for the next two years. The 18 charging points installed in the city of Merída, the regional capital, will be free to those residents who register and obtain a permit to use them, and the city council are already joining the scheme by replacing two of their vehicles with electric equivalents, resulting in them saving around 6,000 euro per year.

Japanese company Toyota Motor, which includes the Daihatsu and Hino brands, plans to produce about 10.1 million vehicles worldwide in 2013, which would mark the biggest number of vehicles manufactured in a year. Toyota expects to produce about 8.9 million units of the parent brand, of which 3.3 million will be manufactured in Japan, 200,000 above what was announced last year.

Officers from the National Police have arrested 8 people, 3 of them in Madrid, dismantling a workshop in Valencia where mid-ranged cars were transformed into fake sports cars, such as Ferrari and Aston Martin luxury vehicles, which were then sold on the internet, sometimes by request, for less than a quarter of the true market value, at around 40,000 euro. The arrests were as a result of a genuine Ferrari dealer, concerned that these inferior imitations were reaching the marketplace. Officers seized 19 vehicles, 17 of which were imitation Ferrari vehicles and two imitation Aston Martin cars.

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/40130/

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