Ford cartel secretary fined €30,000

A CLASSIC cartel designed to corrupt the market and squeeze consumers of cars was operated by the Irish Ford Dealers’ Association, a Circuit Criminal Court judge said yesterday.

He fined the group’s secretary €30,000 and imposed a one-year suspended jail sentence on him.

Mr Justice Liam MacKechnie said in the course of sentencing Denis Manning, aged 68, of 11 Allendale Avenue, Melbourn Estate, Bishopstown, Cork, that the cartel’s activities represented a shocking display which he described in various aspects as obnoxious, pernicious and a crime against consumers.

It operated in the manner of a classic cartel and he said Manning used his experience as a former director of Henry Ford & Son in Cork to do the work of secretary of the IFDA.

The judge rejected the description of Manning as merely a conduit for the wishes of the IFDA executive.

Ray Leonard of the Competition Authority said the object of the scheme put in place by the IFDA, as aided and abetted by Manning, was “to remove competition and to leave the illusion of competition”.

The defence insisted that the case was limited to new car sales for cash only and Mr Justice MacKechnie accepted that. However, Mr Leonard said yesterday: “It was not confined to straight cash sales. When you start a price-fixing arrangement you have to start somewhere. It started with new car straight sales. What I am saying is that it did not stop there.”

Tom Creed SC, defending, said: “Unfortunately it is the aiders and abetters that tend to be the ones who are trust into the firing line. Mr Manning said it was the executive (of the IFDA) who made the decisions and that he carried them out. Perhaps it is a Nuremburg defence but that is what he did, he did it as a functionary.”

Manning was described as working throughout his life without blemish and then, in what was a part-time job after retirement, he committed a criminal offence that put him under pressure. The defendant, who is married with three adult sons and two adult daughters, now suffered health problems. The final mitigating factor the judge considered yesterday in not jailing Manning was his age.

Mr Creed said the defendant co-operated fully in the investigation and agreed to be interviewed by the Competition Authority five times.

However, Mr Leonard said: “At no stage did he freely volunteer information. If he had, the investigation would have been shortened by 12 to 18 months.”

Kellehers of Macroom were the only non-IFDA members in Ireland, and Mr Leonard described the garage as “the only ones to emerge with any dignity from this sad affair”.

Mr Justice MacKechnie echoed this view of Kellehers.