Meritor graphic — click to enlarge.Writing in CCJ, Kevin Jones details the settlement reached between transmission makers ZF Meritor LLC, a joint venture between a Meritor Inc. subsidiary and ZF Friedrichshafen AG; Meritor Transmission Corp. and Eaton Corp., relating to an antitrust lawsuit filed in 2006. Meritor will receive net proceeds of $209 million, according to a company statement.
In a presentation explaining the agreement, Jones writes, Meritor said that this is “one of the largest, private antitrust settlement awards collected by a plaintiff over the past 10 years.”
ZF Meritor had charged that after the joint venture was formed in 1999, Eaton responded with “a series of exclusionary actions designed to reduce consumer access to ZF Meritor transmissions.” Eaton’s most significant action, ZF Meritor alleged, was to use its dominant position “to induce all heavy-duty truck manufacturers to enter into de facto exclusive dealing contracts,” foreclosing 90 percent of heavy-duty transmission sales.
