Competition record
SKF
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
SKF is the Swedish bearings company that supplies carmakers and industrial plants. The European Commission fined SKF in the automotive-bearings cartel with Schaeffler, NTN, and JTEKT.
Overview
SKF, based in Gothenburg, is one of the old names in bearings. It sells to carmakers and to factories that put bearings in machines. The European decision at issue is the automotive slice: bearings quoted to vehicle manufacturers, a high-volume business where a small change in price is multiplied by every platform that uses the part.
The Commission fined SKF together with Schaeffler, NTN, and JTEKT for coordinating those prices. SKF is the Swedish specialist in a group that also includes a German parts maker and two Japanese suppliers. No individual fine is stated here. The record used for this profile is a fined cartel that names these companies.
Library status is fined. A purchasing manager at a car plant, running an auction between SKF and Schaeffler, was the person the coordination was built to disarm.
Competition footprint
Automotive bearing quotes are the product in the decision, inside a company that also sells industrial bearings.
Schaeffler, NTN, and JTEKT complete the set of makers named with SKF.
The finding is price coordination on parts designed into vehicles.
Consumer & business angle
Carmakers are the direct customers, and their target-price process assumes each bearing supplier's number is its own.
Industrial buyers of SKF bearings outside the automotive cartel are a different market from the one this decision describes.
What to watch
- European damages litigation by vehicle makers against SKF and the other bearing suppliers.
- Internal walls between SKF's automotive quoting teams and any contact with Schaeffler, NTN, or JTEKT.
Markets
bearings · automotive bearings · vehicle components
Also known as: skf group, ab skf