BMW Was Fined 30,000 Pounds By CMA, Google Wants To Become More Productive
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German luxury automobile firm BMW was fined 30,000 pounds ($36,519) plus a daily penalty of 15,000 pounds by UK's anti-trust regulator. Google has taken action and believes the restructuring will reduce overlapping mapping work in Waze and Maps.
BMW AG was fined
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is the competition regulator in United Kingdom. It is a non-ministerial government department responsible for strengthening business competition and preventing and reducing anti-competitive activities.
In March this year, the CMA launched an investigation into a number of vehicle manufacturers and trade associations over suspected breaches of competition law. This investigation is to focus in particular on the use of recycled materials in cars.
The CMA suspects that BMW AG, based in Germany, or other companies of the BMW Group based outside of the UK, have information that the CMA believes is important to its investigation. The CMA therefore formally requested information from the BMW Group.
Requests for information may include a wide range of documents and information, such as copies of emails, meeting minutes, and/or information about internal roles and responsibilities.
The wider BMW group did not fully comply with the CMA's legal request, and BMW UK did so. For this reason, the CMA has imposed a fine of £30,000 plus a daily penalty of £15,000, in addition, daily penalties will continue to accrue until BMW Group provides the required information.
The European Commission is also running a parallel investigation into the issue.
Like most companies, BMW shares also fell significantly after Russia's aggression in Ukraine. In the second and third quarters, it managed to make up for the losses. It seems that the last quarter of the year looks optimistic for BMW prices. Since the beginning of December, the traffic has been directed downwards. The last time it traded this low was November 17.
Google and its plans to connecting Waze with Geo
The search giant is under pressure to streamline operations and cut costs. This is why, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was looking for areas where efficiency could be improved.
Google wants to become 20% more productive.
There was a suggestion that the company could combine teams working on overlapping products. For this reason, Google plans to connect more than 500 Waze employees with the company's Geo organization, which oversees Maps, Earth and Street View products.
Google acquired Waze in 2013 for $1.1 billion. Waze counts 151 million monthly active users for its crowdsourced mapping service, which is known for maintaining detailed traffic data. The service operated largely independently of Google Maps after the acquisition, and Google says it will stay that way.
The overall situation of Alphabet Inc (GOOG) for the year is in a downward trend. The current quarter looks the weakest, so any action can be beneficial. Currently, the share price is trading around 95.00 and still falling. This could mean a drop to the November lows.
Source: gov.uk, finance.yahoo.com, wsj.com
