The five leading manufacturers of lifts and escalators are facing claims for damages from the Netherlands possibly running into the tens of millions of euros.

In 2007 the European competition commissioner Neelie Kroes extracted confessions from five manufacturers about price-fixing practices and fined them 992 million euros. From 1998 until 2005 the members of the cartel held regular secret meetings to ensure artificially high prices for their machines and service contracts.
 

Between them Kone, Otis, ThyssenKrupp, Schindler and Mitsubishi control around 80 percent of the Dutch market.
 

Now the Stichting Meldpunt Collectief Onrecht (Register for Collective Injustice Foundation) has set up a website www.liftenkartel.nl for Dutch damage claims against the lift companies. In its press release, the SMCO asks for a one-off payment of 465 euros per claimant to cover part of the legal costs of a class action plus 20 percent of any damages awarded.
 

It's estimated that the losses incurred amount to thousands of euros per lift or escalator per year and that 70,000 Dutch companies, hospitals, government offices and house-owners associations could submit claims.
 

The European Union is also demanding separate damages for lifts installed in EU buildings by the cartel members.