S.Korean antitrust agency probes Volkswagen over emissions ads 

South Korea’s antitrust regulator is probing Volkswagen AG over its advertising claims on emissions from its cars, an official at the agency told Reuters on Friday.

The Fair Trade Commission official said a probe is under way without elaborating. Yonhap News Agency reported earlier that the FTC is investigating whether the German automaker ran false ads by claiming its cars met the European Union‘s strict Euro 5 emissions norms.

A Volkswagen spokeswoman in South Korea said the firm had no immediate comment.

Since admitting in September that it manipulated emissions tests on some of its diesel vehicles in the United States, Volkswagen has been embroiled in a series of investigations and lawsuits around the world.

Seoul’s environment ministry on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against the head of Volkswagen and unit Audi’s South Korean arm, claiming that a proposed fix on its emissions-cheating cars fell short of legal requirements.

Volkswagen and Audi together top imported car sales rankings in South Korea, Asia’s second-largest diesel car market after India. (Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

Source: REUTERS – S.Korean antitrust agency probes Volkswagen over emissions ads

VW rejects call to compensate European drivers over emissions scandal

European commissioner for industry had urged German carmaker to pay out to 8.5m European drivers

VW has dismissed a call from the EU’s industry chief to pay compensation to European drivers who bought cars with emissions test-cheating software.

Elżbieta Bieńkowska, the European commissioner for industry, urged the German carmaker to pay compensation to 8.5 million European drivers who had bought cars fitted with defeat devices when she met VW’s chief executive, Matthias Müller, in Brussels on Thursday.

Bieńkowska, a former deputy prime minister of Poland who oversees EU industry policy, is seeking to raise pressure on the German carmaker to pay compensation, although she has no formal powers to force payouts.

In the US, where the scandal was uncovered, the group has agreed to pay $1,000 (£704) to 500,000 drivers. US owners of VW diesel cars with 2.0 engines will get $500 on a prepaid visa card and $500 in dealership credits, described by the company as a goodwill gesture, because it cannot yet remove the illegal software.

In Europe, VW has promised to remove the device, but has no plans to pay compensation. The company argues it has done nothing illegal under EU law.

In talks that were described as brief and open, the commissioner “invited the group once again to reflect on adequate ways to compensate consumers”, a spokeswoman said. “She repeated her clear view that EU consumers should be treated in the same way as US customers.”

But officials admit they cannot force VW to pay out. “The scope for action by the commission is pretty much nil, so we can only send political messages,” one said.

A spokesman for VW in the UK said: “We don’t see the case for compensation for two main reasons. One is that the vehicles are going to be fixed. There is no hindrance and people can continue to use their vehicles normally.”

The second reason, he said, is that the history of car recalls shows no reduction in resale value – disputing the argument that customers would lose out if they want to sell their cars.

He added that VW cars sold in the US were “technically different” and had to pass stricter tests, while the company had not yet found a fix for the cars. “For all those reasons we decided to compensate US customers.”

VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg did not immediately respond to request for comment, but a group spokesman told the New York Times earlier this week that the company had not broken the law in Europe, because the devices installed in millions of cars were not “forbidden” under EU law.

The scandal erupted last autumn when VW admitted that 11m of its cars were designed to cheat emissions tests. The company has set aside €6.5bn to deal with the crisis, although it could face fines of up to $18bn in the US as a result of a criminal investigation.

The fallout has not only weighed on VW sales but called into question European regulators’ ability to police car pollution standards.

Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Green party member of the European parliament, said national authorities and the European commission had allowed the “regulatory breakdown to occur”.

Speaking on Thursday, after the parliament announced it would begin an investigation into the VW scandal next month, he said: “The commission has serious questions to answer over revelations it failed to act on evidence that car manufacturers were using manipulation to avoid complying with EU car pollution rules. It must also explain why it sat on its hands in the face of evidence that many vehicles on the market exceeded EU pollution norms.”

In the UK vehicle standards are enforced by an executive arm of the department of transport, the VCA.

The fact the scandal was uncovered in the US has caused soul searching in Europe, as officials scramble to overhaul vehicle-emissions tests.

The European commission will push for the power to recall vehicles in breach of EU emissions standards, as well as the ability to fine carmakers that break pollution rules, when it announces a sweeping overhaul of car-sale regulations next week.

However, the proposals could be weakened during the EU’s lengthy legislative process and may run into opposition from countries with powerful car industries, such as Germany, France and the UK.

The tension between the drive for tougher standards and leeway for the car industry is already visible as the EU struggles to bring emissions tests out of laboratory and into the real world. Last year, the British and German governments led efforts to water down reformed testing procedures for NOx emissions, a pollutant that causes the premature death of around 23,500 Britonseach year. EU member states agreed to give carmakers more leeway to exceed pollution limits, as well as more time to adapt to stricter tests.

These rules could yet be rejected by the European parliament in a make-or break vote next month, forcing lawmakers back to the drawing board.

Source: TheGuardian – VW rejects call to compensate European drivers over emissions scandal

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