Volkswagen Investors Want an Expensive Pound of Flesh

Steph Willems
by Steph Willems

The numbers are big — 278 investors seeking $3.61 billion — but the latest lawsuit leveled at Volkswagen is merely another drop in the penalty bucket for the embattled automaker.

As has been expected for some time, a group of institutional investors from numerous countries is seeking compensation for financial damage caused by Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal, Reuters is reporting.

The lawsuit was filed Monday in a Lower Saxony court — the same jurisdiction as Volkswagen’s headquarters — and alleges the automaker breached its duty under capital markets law between the time the “defeat device” was first installed in diesel models and when the scandal went public last September.

Sparked by the E.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Notice of Violation, the scandal saw Volkswagen shares plunge in value, wiping billions out of the portfolios of investors who had been unaware of what was occurring behind the scenes at Volkswagen.

Among the group’s members are a number of German insurers and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System.

Their lawyer, Andreas Tilp of law firm TISAB, said the suit was filed because Volkswagen “persistently denies any settlement negotiations and also refuses to waive the statute of limitation defense until now.”

Earlier in the month, Volkswagen released a document explaining what it knew about the defeat device and when, using the admission to throw cold water on looming investor lawsuits.

However, the automaker’s official recollection has been called into question ever since, and this past weekend news arose that suggests a possible cover-up in the U.S.

Investigations into the Volkswagen are continuing as the automaker struggles to come up with a plan to recall and fix the affected diesel vehicles, sold between 2009 and 2015. In addition to the growing list of lawsuits and the expense of fixing millions of vehicles, the company is also facing fines totaling in the tens of billions of dollars from regulators.

Steph Willems
Steph Willems

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  • Daniel J Daniel J on Mar 16, 2016

    Isn't investing about taking a risk? I wish I could have sued when the markets tanked back in 07 and 08.

    • See 2 previous
    • DenverMike DenverMike on Mar 16, 2016

      @Daniel J "Almost" only counts in 'horseshoes' and hand grenades. Seriously, sorry for your banking/investments losses, but that was more of a ponzi scheme. This VW scandal was criminal in an overt, blatant kind of way.

  • Brandloyalty Brandloyalty on Mar 16, 2016

    Another form of damage yet to be accounted for is the sales lost to VW, on the basis of lies, by other automakers. This has implications all the way from part suppliers to sales staff; and includes losses to hybrid sales resulting from unfair comparisons to VW diesels. Then there's the environmental costs, but who's standing up for those?

  • ToolGuy North America is already the greatest country on the planet, and I have learned to be careful about what I wish for in terms of making changes. I mean, if Greenland wants to buy JDM vehicles, isn't that for the Danes to decide?
  • ToolGuy Once again my home did not catch on fire and my fire extinguisher(s) stayed in the closet, unused. I guess I threw my money away on fire extinguishers.(And by fire extinguishers I mean nuclear missiles.)
  • Carson D The UAW has succeeded in organizing a US VW plant before. There's a reason they don't teach history in the schools any longer. People wouldn't make the same mistakes.
  • B-BodyBuick84 Mitsubishi Pajero Sport of course, a 7 seater, 2.4 turbo-diesel I4 BOF SUV with Super-Select 4WD, centre and rear locking diffs standard of course.
  • Corey Lewis Think how dated this 80s design was by 1995!
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