More than 25,000 people in UK join legal action against Volkswagen 

Volkswagen

More than 25,000 British motorists have joined legal action against car giant Volkswagen over the ‘dieselgate’ emissions scandal.

Motorists take their fight to the High Court today seeking a green light to proceed with the UK’s first ‘class action’.

The scandal erupted when VW was exposed as using ’cheat devices’ to fiddle emissions and fuel efficiency figures. If successful it could see VW landed with a bill of £3.6billion.

Volkswagen reached a £15billion settlement with 500,000 owners in the US, but the German car giant offered nothing to motorists in Britain and Europe.

More than 25,000 UK motorists have joined a High Court legal battle against Volkswagen (file picture)

Lawyers spearheading the action say more than 25,000 consumers have joined the legal action since it was revealed by the Daily Mail at the beginning of January – with more than 100,000 owners making contact.

They are seeking £3,000 compensation per car for 1.2million Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT and Skoda vehicles in the UK.

It comes as prosecutors in Germany announced at the weekend that they were investigating former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn for fraud as they widened their probe into the scandal.

Winterkorn, who resigned days after the scandal became public in September 2015 – is one of 16 more suspects now under investigation in the criminal case centred on VW’s creation, sale and concealment of the ‘cheat devices’ in 11million vehicles.

The High Court challenge also comes amid fury that while Volkswagen in the US – where executives have also been arrested – have pleaded guilty to fraud, paid hefty criminal and civil fines amounting to billions of pounds ($4.3billion).

Law firm Harcus Sinclair – acting on behalf of a number of legal groups including Slater and Gordon – is asking the High Court to grant the first UK group litigation order – a British version of a US style ‘class action’ – on behalf of consumers in England and Wales.

A group litigation order is the Court’s mechanism for handling claims involving a large number of claimants who share the same complaint.

Submissions will be heard today by Barbara Fontaine, the Senior Master of the Queen’s Bench Division at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Harcus Sinclair said that on Friday it had served a claim form on behalf of a sample 6,726 claimants in England and Wales but it noted: ‘Over 25,000 consumers have joined the action since 9 January 2017. A claim form naming the remainder will be served within the next few weeks.’

It added: ‘The scandal has affected 1.2 million cars in the UK alone, and current and previous owners of these cars are eligible to join the legal action.’

But lawyers fear privately VW may seek to delay proceedings in a bid to ‘kick the case into the long grass’ and rack up costs.

The scandal was exposed in the autumn of 2015 when environmental engineers at Transport & Environment (T&E) and the International Council for Clean Transportation (ICCT) revealed VW’s cheating, which the firm admits.

Affected cars include VW, Audi, SEAT and Skoda vehicles with 1.2, 1.6 and 2.0 EA 189 diesel engines manufactured between 2009 and 2015.

The key allegation is that the affected cars should not have been certified as fit for sale because it is alleged that they produced higher levels of nitrous oxide or ‘NOx emissions than the rules allowed.

It is also alleged that the affected vehicles only passed official emissions tests because their engines were fitted with a ‘defeat device’ which reduces NOx emissions under test conditions.

The UK class action surrounds the fact that drivers paid a premium price for what they thought were clean diesel cars.

Lawyers highlight figures from the government’s Department for Rural Affairs that NOx emissions cause 23,000 premature deaths in the UK each year.

Claimants have been signing up to the legal action via the website www.vwemissionsaction.com which was set up by Harcus Sinclair to provide more information about the case.

Volkswagen has admitted equipping diesel cars with sophisticated software that turned on emissions controls when engines were being tested by the Environmental Protection Agency, then turned them off during normal driving.

The software, called a ‘defeat device’ because it defeated the emissions controls, improved engine performance but spewed out harmful nitrogen oxide at up to 40 times above the legal limit.

Source: Daily Mail

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