In this matter, martinsdelima intervened as an independent economic expert to analyze the impact of a cartel in the automotive sector accredited by the competition authority, based on exchanges of commercially sensitive and strategic information in the Spanish market for distribution and services linked to vehicles. In practice, the case required translating an “on the market” anti-competitive conduct into concrete economic consequences for an affected buyer, considering that this type of conduct is usually reflected in lower discounts and less aggressive commercial policies, with effects that also reach the used vehicle market.
The affected company was in the vehicle rental sector, with recurring purchases of automobiles as an essential part of its operation. This made it especially relevant to determine, with technical rigor, how the overcharge on the purchase could “travel” through the value chain and what part of the damage was effectively borne by the company, compared to the part eventually passed on to its own clients.
From the beginning, the work was approached with a demanding standard: a purely technical report, focused on financial and economic aspects, avoiding legal assessments, and based on case documentation, research and public sources, with an objective and traceable interpretation. The objective was for the result to be defensible in court: clear in its assumptions, transparent in its logic and verifiable in its calculations.
The methodology was articulated in three blocks, starting with the estimation of the overcharge. For this, a comparative method was applied, which seeks to approximate what the price would have been in a situation of effective competition, and a contrast was designed with a sample of comparable companies (same sector and size, to guarantee financial and commercial homogeneity). This phase also included explicit methodological decisions (choice of method, justification of the sample and contrast variables) to reinforce the robustness of the counterfactual.
The second block addressed one of the most discussed points in competition damages: the repercussion of costs (pass-on). The report incorporates a specific analysis of pass-on and supports it with standard economic tools, including the use of elasticities of demand and supply as a key element to estimate what part of the overcharge could have been passed downstream. With this, the final quantification is not limited to “how much the price went up”, but to what was the damage actually absorbed by the affected company after considering the competitive dynamics of its own market.
The result was a comprehensive and coherent quantification of the damage, built on a complete scheme of overcharge + pass-on + financial update, with support annexes and documentary traceability to facilitate its verification. This approach allowed the presentation of a solid, technical and well-founded claim, maximizing clarity for third parties (court, counter-expert and parties) and reinforcing the client’s position with a work especially rigorous in methodology, comparability and defense of the counterfactual.