Acquisition method
Trucks on long-term hire: your right to reparation
Not holding the registration document takes nothing away. Long-term hire rentals were calculated on artificially inflated purchase prices.
How the overcharge entered the rental calculation
The long-term hire model rests on the lessor financing the full new value of the vehicle. The monthly rental covers amortisation of the invested capital, the cost of bank financing and an operating margin.
When the cartel members agreed a covert inflation of gross list prices of between 10 and 20 %, that increase flowed automatically into the rental scales offered to hauliers.
Having passed on the whole of that inflation, the hire company suffered no net financial loss. It is the end lessee that paid an artificially inflated monthly rental throughout the contract.
Independent lessors as well as manufacturer captives
Every long-term hire contract is eligible, whether signed with an independent lessor or a manufacturer captive: all of them bought the vehicles at the inflated wholesale price set by the cartel.
Returning the truck at the end of the contract changes nothing. The right to reparation attaches to the inflation of the rentals paid during the operating period. The rules are the same whatever the brand: see Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Renault Trucks, DAF, Iveco, MAN and Scania.
How your claim is calculated
The original overcharge is only part of your claim. The decisive lever is the compounding of statutory late payment interest, accrued over twelve to twenty-eight years.
Worked example: for a tractor unit on long-term hire from 2006 on an original value of EUR 110,000 net, the overcharge passed into the rentals is EUR 16,500. With twenty years of statutory interest at 4 % per year, the total claim is roughly EUR 36,135 per vehicle.
Eligibility check
Send us your invoices, lease agreements, registration documents or asset registers covering 1997 to 2014.
Audit and firm offer
Our lawyers and econometricians quantify your claim within four weeks.
Guided decision
You choose between a cash purchase of your claim within 30 days and litigation on a success-fee basis.
Payment released
The compensation is credited directly to your company bank account.
Frequently asked questions
The other eligible acquisition methods
All the analyses in this section, plus the Acquisition methods hub for the overview.
Start the free audit of your long-term hire contracts
We reconstruct the undue portion of the rentals. No commitment and no upfront fee.
Or write directly to contact@truckcartelclaim.com