EU anti-trust regulators said on Wednesday that US firms Honeywell and DuPont may have hindered competition when they produced the only environmentally acceptable auto coolant for the European market.
The European Commission told the two firms that the cooperation they launched in 2010 to make the air-conditioning coolant may “have limited its availability and technical development in breach of EU anti-trust rules.”
The Commission, the 28-member EU’s executive branch, said it sent a “statement of objections” to the companies, which amounts to a formal warning over suspected violations of the bloc’s competition rules.
Since last year, EU norms demand that car makers use the refrigerant called R1234yf, which is made by Honeywell and DuPont, on the grounds that it produces far less greenhouse gases than older coolants.
The Commission said it found that the US firms’ cooperation “resulted in restrictive effects on competition.
“These effects include a limitation of the available quantities of the new refrigerant that would have otherwise been brought to the market, as well as a limitation of related technical development,” it said.