A federal court ruled Thursday in favor of trucking supplier ArvinMeritor Inc. over Eaton Corp., in which ArvinMeritor had accused its competitor of violating antitrust law in the sale and marketing of heavy-duty truck transmissions.
The ruling by a jury in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., now moves to the so-called damages phase, where the amount of money that can be collected will be decided, Troy, Mich.-based ArvinMeritor said in a statement.
Cleveland-based Eaton said it was “disappointed” with the verdict and plans to appeal and review “all of our options.”
ArvinMeritor entered the transmission market in 1999 in a joint venture with Germany’s ZF Friedrichshafen AG, called ZFMeritor. Meritor claimed that it was forced to stop manufacturing heavy truck transmissions in 2007 because of Eaton’s actions.
In court documents, ArvinMeritor had alleged that “Eaton engaged in anticompetitive conduct to thwart Meritor’s transmission sales,” while in its court filings Eaton denied those allegations and said it had broken no laws.
“We are elated that the jury recognized Eaton’s wrongful conduct in violation of antitrust laws that harmed competition in the markets for heavy-duty truck transmissions, forced us to exit the [North American] line-haul transmission business and led to the demise of our joint venture with ZF Industries,” said ArvinMeritor Chief Executive Officer CEO Chip McClure in a statement.
By Transport Topics
Senior Reporter Rip Watson contributed to this story.
