German carmakers colluded on diesel emissions: report

German carmakers Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche, BMW and Daimler secretly worked together from the 1990s onwards on issues including polluting emissions from diesel vehicles, news magazine Der Spiegel reported today.

Volkswagen, facing tens of billions of dollars in compensation and fines after admitting to manipulating diesel emissions in 2015, reported the cartel to German competition authorities in a letter seen by the weekly, as did Mercedes- Benz maker Daimler.

"The German car industry agreed in secret working groups about technology in their vehicles, costs, suppliers, markets, strategies and even about the emissions treatment of their diesel vehicles," the magazine reported.

Such cooperation between all of the country's large car manufacturers could have included "behaviour infringing antitrust law," according to the Volkswagen letter.

A spokesman for Volkswagen -- which owns Audi and Porsche -- told

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)