“The allegations in complaints filed by certain states today are essentially not new and we have been addressing them in our discussions with USA federal and state authorities”.
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VW said it “continues to anticipate that, depending on the economic conditions – particularly in South America and Russian Federation – and the exchange rate development and in light of the diesel issue, we expect 2016 sales revenue for the Volkswagen Group to be down by as much as five per cent on the prior‐year figure”.
The lawsuit follows a 9-month investigation by a multistate coalition of over 40 states and other jurisdictions, led by New York, Massachusetts, and four other states.
The NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said they are taking action against the companies for the automakers’ sale of diesel automobiles (including over 25,000 in NY, 15,000 in MA and 12,935 in Maryland) that were fitted with illegal “defeat devices” that concealed illegal amounts of harmful emissions these cars spewed- and then allegedly attempting to cover-up their behavior.
The lawsuit claims that Müller was made aware in 2006 that 3.0-liter diesel vehicles made by Volkswagen would have difficulty meeting federal emissions standards in the U.S. Volkswagen ultimately chose to avoid the cost of installing the necessary equipment to bring the vehicles into compliance, instead opting to use illegal software, NY alleges.
Last week, British MPs said that Volkswagen’s failure to compensate United Kingdom owners of cars affected by the emissions scandal was “deeply unfair”. The suit accuses top executives of engaging in a massive fraud for years related to VW’s cheating. Under that settlement, MA is in line for $70 million toward environmental mitigation efforts and $20 million for violating consumer protections laws.
The suits did not state Mueller was aware of the cheating.
The state lawsuits were a blow after Europe’s largest automaker reached a crucial milestone last month by hammering out a $15.3 billion settlement with USA authorities.
Additionally, just before the scandal broke, in August 2015, eight employees in the engineering department “promptly deleted or removed incriminating data about the devices from the company’s record”, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that the emission violations “strike at the heart” of New York’s environmental laws, and that consumers were “defrauded” by Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche.
The legal action also claims that former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn and a top executive at Audi knew of the devices by at least spring 2014.
To combat that, they added software they called the “acoustic function”, which turned off the software and allowed the auto to meet the European standards, according to the suit. Prosecutors here and overseas are also looking at possible criminal charges.
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“This is an example of a company that not only engaged in deception and fraud on a brazen scale but covered up that deception”, Maura Healey, the MA attorney general, said at a news conference on Tuesday.
