Employees work on an assembly line at the Mercedes-Benz Group AG plant in Sindelfingen, Germany. (Kriztian Bocci/Bloomberg)
key takeaways:
- A London court has largely rejected claims that Mercedes-Benz, Ford, Renault and others used illegal defeat devices, ruling in a major UK emissions class action.
- The case involved 1.6 million claimants and 38 allegations, but only two were upheld, leaving one of the country’s largest mass claims under investigation.
- After partially dismissing the claims, the court will hold a hearing in October to determine the outcome and potential payouts, if any.
Carmakers including Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Ford Motor Co and Renault SA won a massive case over allegations they rigged vehicles to cheat emissions tests, with a London court dismissing most of the claims in a closely watched class action case.
The decision, which also involves Nissan Motor Co and a unit of Stellantis NV, comes after a 15-week trial over the decade-old scandal, which led to 1.6 million claimants accusing the companies of using banned “defeat devices” to cheat on emissions tests.
Charges related to the original 2015 scandal resulted in Volkswagen AG losing more than $30 billion and resulting in multiple criminal convictions. Volkswagen UK is not among the five major defendants in the lawsuit. According to Volkswagen, the court has upheld only two of the 38 prohibited defeat device charges. “The implications of the claimants’ case and the prospects in relation to the wider group of vehicles are clear.”
The verdict is a blow to one of the largest collective claims in the country’s history and sets a precedent for similar cases against nine other carmakers in Britain.
“There is no allegation that any of them had any device that is substantially similar to the prohibited defeat device at the center of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate,” the judge said in the ruling. “Therefore any idea that the answer to this matter is clear must be firmly put aside.”
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The High Court will hold a separate hearing in October to decide the consequences of the ruling and what, if anything, the car companies may have to pay.
A Mercedes spokesman said after the ruling that the court found that the majority of vehicles tested were in compliance with the regulations. “We consider the claims being made in the quantum test to be unfounded. The court ruled clearly that the functionality objected to does not reduce the effectiveness of the emissions control system.”
Spokespeople for Ford, Renault, Nissan, Stellantis and lawyers for the claimants had no immediate comment on the ruling. Carmakers had previously denied the allegations and argued that the claims were false and baseless.
