Chinese regulators found Mercedes-Benz guilty of price-fixing its spare parts in China, Xinhua news reported.

The penalty was not mentioned in the report, but the 2008 legislation regarding monopoly states that China's anti-trust regulator, National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), is allowed to enforce a fine that is up to 10 percent of the company's revenue in China for the previous year.

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Several other industries have also been under the scrutiny of the regulators in order to ensure strict compliance on the 2008 anti-monopoly law.

The car industry has been under the spotlight, which led to several carmakers, such as Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen, Audi, and BMW, to cut down on its spare parts prices.

In a report released by Xinhua on Sunday, it said that the Price Bureau of Jiangsu province conducted an investigation on Mercedes-Benz in July after finding evidence that the carmaker has been manipulating its prices in some of its dealerships.

A spokesman of Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, said that they are coordinating with the local authorities regarding the investigations, but said they cannot give out further details regarding the matter.

"It is a typical case of a vertical monopoly," Jiangsu anti-trust investigation chief Zhou Gao said, according to Xinhua.

The chief of investigation said Mercedes-Benz is taking advantage of being the leading car maker to fix the price of its spare parts and manipulate the price of its services.

Xinhua cited a report from China Automotive Maintenance and Repair Trade Association, which said that because of the price manipulation, it would be 12 times more expensive to change the parts of a Mercedes-Benz than to buy a new one.

Tagsmercedes benz, price manipulation