Hundreds of thousands of individual comparisons with customers have been closed, fundamental questions have been clarified – but the civil law processing of the exhaust gas scandal will not let go of the German automotive industry in 2022 either. At Volkswagen, where “Dieselgate” began more than six years ago, consumers and Group lawyers expect further decisions by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) from February.
In Karlsruhe, it is expected to be a question of the exact cases in which claims for damages due to the depreciation of vehicles with manipulated emission control are time-barred until March. Five parallel proceedings on the subject are planned.
In principle, those affected would have had to go to court within a three-year period until the end of 2018. The BGH has already decided: Anyone who undoubtedly knew about the diesel scandal in 2015 and only sued in 2019 or later will be left empty-handed. However, courts must not impute this to plaintiffs solely because of the broad media coverage – therefore, there may be a need for further clarification in individual cases.
In addition, it is about the question of whether diesel owners still have claims in the case of a car purchase after the information of the financial markets by VW on the “diesel issue”. Oral proceedings are scheduled for this purpose. The BGH has basically rejected a liability of the car manufacturer for such late purchases. However, the judges also want to check whether VW may have to pay so-called residual damages despite the statute of limitations.
Possible compensation for leasing customers
Possible compensation for leasing customers remains a similarly complex issue. Here, the BGH specified as a direction that paid installments do not have to be refunded with unrestricted use – at least not if no subsequent takeover of the diesel car was agreed. However, additional dates are scheduled for April.
Some large chunks could be cleared in the past year. According to VW, until February 2021, the eligible owners of cars with the “scandal engine” EA189 predominantly accepted their offer of damages, which had been negotiated in 2020 as part of the model declaratory action with the Federal Association of Consumer Centers (vzbv). Around 244,000 diesel drivers from the Group brands opted for this. Some reported a delayed settlement or disbursement, Volkswagen regretted such incidents.
Several other customers were not satisfied with the settlement package or also complained on their own for other reasons. In May 2020, the BGH issued a landmark ruling on those cases that had reached it – as a result of which VW has so far reached an agreement with more than 40,000 additional customers, according to its own statements.
Overall, the focus has recently shifted somewhat to other car manufacturers. According to a BGH spokesman from mid-December, around 1200 diesel proceedings were pending in Karlsruhe at the end of 2021, about half of which still concerned the Wolfsburg-based group. Initially, a good three quarters of the proceedings were VW cases. This does not include the separately recorded Group subsidiary Audi. The statistics also include non-admission complaints, which can be submitted to the BGH if a lower instance has not allowed an appeal.
The VI Civil Senate, which was originally solely responsible in Karlsruhe, can no longer cope with the flood. In the meantime, some of the cases had been taken over by the judges of the VII Senate. Since August, there has been a specially established “Hilfsspruchkörper” (VIa. Civil Senate). According to the BGH, around 600 new proceedings have been received there since then. Currently, almost 300 VW cases are pending.
Claims for damages by shareholders
In terms of content, after the landmark ruling of May 2020, which paved the way for many consumers to obtain damages from VW, the more specific constellations are now up for clarification. In 2021, for example, it was decided that the compensation also includes extra costs for installment financing such as loan interest or that no claims are eliminated by the resale of the car. Pure leasing customers, on the other hand, have so far had little chance.
Also, successful plaintiffs cannot have the purchase price of their diesel paid retroactive interest (tort interest). The judges also emphasized that the mandatory update that deactivated the fraud software does not constitute a new inadmissible defeat device – and that this point can therefore usually not justify a new claim for damages. Abroad, the Group is entitled toIn the meantime, many procedures have progressed or been terminated. However, class actions continue to exist in some key EU markets such as France, Belgium and Portugal, as well as in the UK – “often at an early stage”.
There are also complaints about the newer EA288 engine, which according to VW has no inadmissible defeat device and is therefore “not comparable” with the EA189. Here, courts have so far ruled almost exclusively in favor of the manufacturer. “Of more than 10,000 regional court rulings, almost 99 percent have been issued in favor of Volkswagen,” it says in Wolfsburg. In the more than 1000 proceedings before higher regional courts (OLG), the proportion is as good as 100 percent. At the beginning of 2021, around 8500 lawsuits were pending from customers as of EA288.
It is still relatively open how claims for damages by VW shareholders and major investors around the exhaust gas affair are evaluated. The Higher Regional Court of Braunschweig intends to continue the oral hearing in this case at the end of April following comments from the parties. The question is whether the Group may have informed the financial world too late in 2015 about the impending billion-dollar risks of “Dieselgate” and can thus be held jointly responsible for some considerable price losses.
Volkswagen remains of the opinion that the Board of Management “had no reliable knowledge until the summer of 2015 that the software used in US diesel vehicles contains a “defeat device” prohibited by US law”. In addition, the development and use of the deception code had been carried out by “employees of downstream hierarchical levels”, whereby they had “deliberately hidden their actions from higher management levels”. Who knew what about the software and when in which function is also a central topic in the criminal fraud trial against former managers and engineers of Volkswagen, which has been running since September at the Braunschweig Regional Court. (By Jan Petermann and Anja Semmelroch, dpa)
Also read:
BGH ruling on the exhaust gas scandal: Securitised right of return does not exclude damages
Claims against car dealers: BGH creates clarity with new exhaust gas scandal ruling
BGH decides in favor of dealers: Diesel buyers cannot simply withdraw from the purchase
Exhaust gas scandal – Buyer’s lawyer speaks of “shock”: BGH sets two-year deadline for new car replacement
From the data center:
.