Control units supplied
Diesel scandal: Continental pays 100 million euro fine
April 25, 2024, 12:02 p.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
There is always talk of the VW diesel scandal, and other well-known companies are directly or indirectly involved. They are also punished in proceedings. Now it hits Continental, which has to shell out 100 million euros for the delivery of control units.
The automotive supplier Continental has to pay a fine of 100 million euros in connection with the VW diesel scandal for violating its supervisory obligation. This was announced by the Hanover public prosecutor’s office. From mid-2007, the former drive division of the DAX group (now Vitesco) delivered more than twelve million engine control units with which emissions values were manipulated. The software of the devices ensured that diesel engines only met the limit values for nitrogen oxide when tested, but that they emitted more pollutants than permitted when driving on the road. The technology was also used in Volkswagen’s EA 189 diesel engine, which was at the center of the emissions scandal that was exposed in 2015.
Continental is thus drawing a line under the diesel fine procedure, the company explained. The appeal against the decision will be waived “after intensive discussions with the public prosecutor’s office”. The fine does not lead to any significant additional burden on earnings, as provisions had been set up in previous years.
Conti’s legal director, Olaf Schick, pointed out that the supplier had learned its lessons from the scandal: “We have given the issue of integrity the highest priority, have restructured it organizationally and trained our employees intensively.”
All major suppliers were involved in the diesel scandal: ZF Friedrichshafen had to pay a fine of 42.5 million euros in 2020 for negligent violation of supervisory obligations in connection with the manipulation of the exhaust gas purification of diesel vehicles. In 2019, the Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office imposed a fine of 90 million euros on the world’s largest supplier Bosch for the same matter.
The fines for the Volkswagen Group amounted to one billion euros. Compensation for the emissions scandal in the form of fines, damages and legal fees has so far cost Volkswagen more than 32 billion euros. Violations of the supervisory obligation at the VW subsidiaries Audi and Porsche as well as at Daimler (now Mercedes-Benz) were punished with high three-digit million amounts.