Robert Bosch to Pay $2.24M Worth of Class Action Settlement, Become Consolidated to Similar Litigations

Consumers have been awarded a $2.24M settlement with known brake manufacturers Robert Bosch GmbH and Robert Bosch LLC to bring a class action lawsuit against the companies to a conclusion. The lawsuit accuses the manufacturers of price-fixing (antitrust), which resulted in inflated automobile pricing.

In Re: Automative Parts Antitrust Litigation

The companies have asked the Michigan Federal Court to impose the settlement, which will see $2.11 million distributed to Electronic Brake System (EBS) class members and $128,000 distributed to hydraulic system class members. In addition, all of them accuse the manufacturers of inflating the price, rigging bids, and allocating markets.

On August 26, the class members filed a complaint asking the court to link their case to a nearly decade auto parts price-fixing MDL (Multidistrict Litigation), which has resulted in millions of dollars being paid out to consumers by several companies implicated in the alleged scheme.

The MDL was formed following a 2010 investigation by the United States Department of Justice, which determined that auto parts manufacturers had worked together to rig pricing and inflate the market.

Robert Bosch to Enter the List of Settlements in Price-Fixing Scheme for Automotive Parts

In 2015, Japanese suppliers T.Rad Co. Ltd. and Fujikura Ltd. agreed to pay more than $14.5M to end-payors to settle allegations that they were involved in the conspiracy. Heat exchanger manufacturer T.Rad was accused of attempting to fix the prices of ATF warmers and radiators, while Fujikura was suspected of conspiring to fix the pricing of vehicular wire harness systems.

Recently, the car buyers and lessees reached a settlement with Lucas Automotive GmbH, ZF TRW Automotive Holdings Corp., and ZF Friedrichshafen AG for hydraulic brake parts totaling $760,000.

The law firms Robins Kaplan LLP, Cotchett Pitre & McCarthy LLP, and Susman Godfrey LLP announced that they had obtained more than $1.2 billion accounting to the settlements for the end-payors within the MDL, which they claimed was an amount that, taken together, was the biggest antitrust indirect purchaser settlement throughout history.

As stated in a statement, Bosch’s payment guarantees significant compensation towards the proposed settlement classes, which will be available years earlier than the case if the litigation against Bosch had progressed through trial and appeal.

Although the settlements do not contain an allocation for lawyers, they indicate that one-third of the collected fund will be reserved for the firm’s price-fixing program.

Editor’s Note on Bosch Antitrust Settlement 2021:

This article is written to inform you of the multidistrict litigation accusing multiple manufacturers of price-fixing vehicle parts to increase their sales and to take control of the market.

Case Name & No.: In re: Automotive Parts Antitrust Litigation, Case No. 2:12-MD-02311

Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

Products/Services: Auto parts 

Allegations: Multiple companies engaged in a price-fixing scheme to increase sales and control the auto parts market

Status: Pending

Did you know that the manufacturers continued to negotiate settlements more than a decade after the DOJ began investigating their scheme? Click the “Contact Us” button below and share with us your thoughts!

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(PC – Christoph Hoffmann)