(Photo Credit: Julian Hochgesang, Unsplash)Germany’s highest court for civil disputes ruled that Volkswagen must compensate owners in the country whose vehicles were equipped with emissions cheating software.
The ruling by the Bundesgerichtshof (BGH) allows owners to return affected vehicles to the automaker for a partial refund of the purchase price, Reuters reported. “Volkswagen said on Monday it would work urgently with motorists on an agreement that would see them hold on to the vehicles for a one-off compensation payment,” journalist Ilona Wissenbach wrote.
In 2014 plaintiff Herbert Gilbert purchased a Volkswagen Sharan model that came with emissions cheating software, the Associated Press explained. Even though Gilbert was seeking a full refund on the original purchase price, the court decided that Volkswagen owed him less due to the mileage he’d already put on the vehicle, according to the AP.
“The verdict by the BGH draws a final line. It creates clarity on the BGH’s views on the underlying questions in the diesel proceedings for most of the 60,000 cases still pending,” Volkswagen said, according to Reuters.
There are still around 60,000 individual cases against Volkswagen currently pending in Germany, the automaker says. This week’s decision offers a template for how to proceed on them, CNET’s Sean Szymkowski noted.
Volkswagen has already shelled out billions of dollars in fines for “dieselgate,” where vehicles were equipped with software that enabled cheating on emissions controls. The scandal first came to light in 2015, and led to discoveries of workarounds at other automakers, Deutsche Welle pointed out.
In January, the Canadian government fined Volkswagen nearly $150 million for violating federal diesel emissions standards in the country. The same month, Mitsubishi and Denso were also scrutinized over emissions.
