Mercedes-Benz was held liable in the diesel tampering case

A judge in Germany has held the Mercedes-Benz Group car company responsible in a lawsuit filed by owners of diesel fuel. Daimler at the time is said to have installed “cheating software” in diesel cars for years. As a result, the vehicles appeared to meet the applicable emission standards during testing, while in practice this was not the case.

The case was initiated three years ago by the consumer club Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZBV), which 2,500 people joined. This applies to owners of Mercedes GLCs and Mercedes GLKs. The fact that the judge is now holding the company liable does not mean that they will be paid immediately. Car owners now have to sue individually to get money from the manufacturer.

Volkswagen

In a similar case, also brought by VZBV, Volkswagen already compensated car owners a few years ago. The manufacturer allocated 830 million euros for this, so that 260,000 Volkswagen drivers received about 15 percent of the new price of their car. At that time, this amounted to 1350 euros to 6257 euros.

Mercedes-Benz disagrees with the Stuttgart court’s decision and has indicated it will appeal. The company and its employees acted appropriately at the time, the group says.

Source: ANP