Diesel plaintiffs who bought their car after the emissions scandal became known in autumn 2015 are not entitled to compensation from Volkswagen. The Federal Court of Justice is now ruling that a malicious deception can no longer be determined from this point in time.
Diesel plaintiffs who bought their car after the emissions scandal became known in autumn 2015 are not entitled to compensation from Volkswagen. From this point on, the group changed its behavior, judged the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in Karlsruhe. A deception and deliberate immoral damage to buyers can no longer be determined. The top civil judges rejected the revision of a man who had only bought his VW diesel in August 2016. The model case from Rhineland-Palatinate is, according to VW, exemplary for around 10,000 still open cases.
The Wolfsburg-based carmaker went public on September 22, 2015 with an ad hoc announcement to the shareholders and a press release. From then on, the topic was big in the media for months. At that time, Volkswagen had also set up a website where car owners could check whether their car also had an engine with the illegal exhaust technology. Against this background, it can be assumed that essential circumstances that previously spoke in favor of deception should have been eliminated in autumn 2015, said judge Stephan Seiters.
Based on the ad hoc announcement, buyers could no longer have expected the exhaust technology to meet the requirements. The fact that VW had only reacted under pressure and could possibly have done more to clarify the scandal is no longer sufficient for the serious accusation of immoral damage. Before the scandal became known, things looked very different. During this time, the BGH found in its first diesel judgment of May 25 that the group deliberately misled its customers and is therefore liable in principle.
Richter announced three other diesel judgments
When calculating the claims, those affected must have the mileage covered against the purchase price. And only those who return their cars get money. This means that the other 50,000 or so ongoing proceedings have ultimately been decided. The group no longer wants to fight these cases in court, but instead want to offer each claimant an individual sum. Anyone who gets involved should be allowed to keep their car.
The judges announced three other diesel judgments. It follows from this that VW successful plaintiffs do not have to pay so-called tort interest on the money put into the car in addition to the damages – an important decision for the group. The carmaker is silent on the entire scale. But the BGH attorney at VW had said that the large number of proceedings involved a lot of money. In addition, it is now certain that frequent drivers may no longer get any money at all. This can happen when the mileage covered is completely used up by counting the kilometers traveled. According to Volkswagen, however, only comparatively few people have sued with older cars.
. (tagsToTranslate) economy (t) Volkswagen (t) exhaust gas scandal