NY state, MA and Maryland are suing Volkswagen and its affiliates Audi and Porsche over diesel emissions cheating, alleging that the German automakers defrauded customers and violated state environmental laws by selling diesel vehicles equipped with software allowing them to cheat emissions testing.
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“Despite being fully aware of the prohibitions in this country against defeat devices, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche proceeded to roll out hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles with 2.0 and 3.0 liter engines onto the American market from the 2009 through 2016 model years, all of which featured undisclosed and illegal defeat devices”, the lawsuit says.
The company has already begun to rethink its strategy stateside, repositioning the brand in the aftermath of the notorious “Dieselgate” scandal and this move is just one the many steps Volkswagen has to go through in order to achieve its objective.
However, the firm said it would pay out 2.2 billion euro in special items to cover “legal risks” in America linked to the emissions scandal.
Further, the suit says the German automaker submitted false documents to the two states as part of an effort to hide the cheating.
The company, which is also the target of potentially costly criminal probes in the US, Germany and South Korea, admitted in September to using the defeat devices, allowing nearly 600,000 vehicles to have the run of the road while emitting up to 40 times more pollutants than permitted under US law. The scandal prompted the departure of VW’s CEO and other executives. The suits publicly identify many of these employees and accuse them of “unlawful conduct”.
Maryland’s attorney general is also expected to file suit.
The New York suit seeks civil penalties up to 0 million.
The suits were filed by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in Albany, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in Boston and Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh in Baltimore.
The suits did not state Mueller was aware of the cheating.
The Germany-based company reaffirmed its outlook for the full year, saying it expected revenue to be as much as 5% below 2015 levels as a result of weakness in emerging markets, foreign-exchange volatility and the impact of the emissions-cheating scandal. “It extended from front-line engineers throughout the corner offices.and right into the CEO suites”, Schneiderman said, adding that the “toxic corporate culture that produced this fraud must be stopped”.
But despite the lawsuits, fines, and a $15 billion settlement between VW and U.S. regulators and consumers (the auto industry’s biggest ever), recent history suggests that VW’s woes could be short-lived.
A Volkswagen spokeswoman called Tuesday’s allegations “essentially not new”, adding the company has been addressing them in discussions with USA and state authorities.
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As lawsuits loom in Maryland, Massachusetts and New York, VW said legal problems will eat into its operating earnings by an additional €2.2 billion, which is about $2.4 billion.
