New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who is seeking $450 million in penalties, said this week that Volkswagen engaged in “egregious and pervasive violations” that “strike at the heart” of state environmental laws.
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The lawsuits alleged that, after the EPA and CARB contacted Volkswagen and Audi about the discrepancies revealed by the West Virginia University study – which the companies fully knew were caused by their defeat devices – Audi and Volkswagen.
“The numbers show a historic record result in the second quarter, and that’s just spectacular considering the headwinds VW faces with declining revenues and all the woes triggered by the diesel scandal”, said Juergen Pieper, a Frankfurt-based analyst at Metzler Bank.
German prosecutors said last month that Winterkorn is under investigation.
VW has consistently maintained that the dieselgate cheats were developed by a small group of rogue engineers. They follow Volkswagen’s acknowledgement in September that it used the “defeat devices” on more than 11 million
vehicles sold globally and its $15.3 billion settlement of federal US litigation and charges by 44 states.
Last month Volkswagen agreed to a $14.7 billion settlement with regulators and state attorneys general as compensation for US vehicle owners, repairing cars to lower emissions and paying environmental fines.
Volkswagen spokeswoman Jeannine Ginivan told Bloomberg BNA in a July 19 e-mail that the allegations included in the state complaints are “essentially not new” and have the focus of discussions with federal and state authorities.
The New York suit seeks civil penalties up to 0 million.
The New York suit cited internal documents from as early as 2007 about Volkswagen’s determination to promote “clean diesel” technology as a rival to Toyota Motor Corp’s (7203.T) Prius hybrid.
VW’s efforts to evade emissions laws dates back to 1999, when the Audi division tried to lower nitrogen oxide emissions to be able to sell large luxury cars with 3-liter, six-cylinder engines in Europe. That technology would end up in all the cars tainted with the devices from model year 2004 to 2008.
That Volkswagen used six different “defeat devices” to purposefully skirt US emissions rules, including three generations of a device used in Volkswagens and other iterations used in Audi and Porsche diesel engines. It claimed that in 2006 he decided not to equip certain Audi vehicles with the parts needed to meet U.S. environmental standards.
In total, NY is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. The Justice Department and Environmental Protection Agency haven’t reached a deal with VW on fines as part of a separate settlement that could bring in an outside monitor to oversee compliance. Though the company’s senior executives refused to disclose the exact location of production in North America, Mr. Woebcken stated that one of the company’s Chattanooga or Mexico factories is likely to be used to manufacture electric cars.
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In October 2006, many Volkswagen executives held a conference call with California regulators, with the latter requesting additional details on emissions-control devices.
