Compensation payments to volkswagen customers in diesel settlement nearing conclusion. In around 240.000 cases, a total of more than 750 million euros has been transferred, the company announced on tuesday.
The associated online portal will be in operation for just under a week; it is scheduled to be launched on 6. July to be closed. After that, customers will only be able to submit documents by mail, such as invoices from lawyers. In other proceedings pending before the courts, the group intends to approach the plaintiffs in accordance with a fundamental ruling of the federal supreme court in favor of consumers.
VW explained that the comparison with the model procedure has now "essentially been completed". Several thousand claims were still being examined or were in the process of being implemented – no major change in the figures was expected before the coming week. More than 90 percent of the customers who are entitled to claim have been able to reach an agreement. Depending on the age and type of the vehicle, amounts between 1350 and 6257 euros were offered.
The federal association of consumer advice centers (vzbv) had represented several hundred thousand diesel drivers at the higher regional court in braunschweig, but withdrew its action for a declaratory judgement against VW after an agreement was reached on a supreme court settlement. The money from the settlement is intended to compensate customers for the loss of value of cars in which the EA 189 engine is installed. In september 2015, volkswagen admitted to manipulating the emission values of diesel cars with this drive system following examinations by authorities and research by researchers in the u.S.
Independently of the braunschweig proceedings, there are still several tens of thousands of individual lawsuits in germany that are before local, regional or higher regional courts. At the end of may, the federal court of justice ruled that VW is in principle also obliged to pay compensation in this case.
The supreme civil court ruled that the use of illegal emissions technology was immoral and caused damage to buyers: car owners who are still in legal dispute with the company can therefore return their cars and claim their money back. This applies to both new and used vehicles. However, the kilometers driven are taken into account in the purchase price.
"Volkswagen’s goal is to bring these proceedings to an end as quickly as possible in consultation with the plaintiffs," was the message from wolfsburg. At the moment, there are still about 50.000 case. Unlike the model proceedings, there is no fixed corridor of possible compensation amounts – instead, there will always be individual offers to the plaintiffs. "We are now approaching individual attorneys to prepare discussions on the framework for settlements."