Mercedes-Benz customers who sought compensation for manipulated diesel engines won part of the case, according to the German court decision issued this Thursday, in one of the many legal aspects of the ‘dieselgate’.
The Stuttgart court ruled that the car manufacturer had installed “unauthorized deactivation devices” that limited the purification of diesel exhaust gases in certain vehicles.
The decision now revealed paves the way for individual compensation claims by customers who claim to have been harmed, however, the Mercedes group indicated that it will appeal the decision.
It is worth noting that around 2800 customers had joined the collective action launched in 2021 by the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (VZBV).
The Stuttgart court rejected certain parts of the complaint, related, in particular, to the intentional or unintentional nature of the deception and the types of models involved. With this decision, “important foundations have now been laid for compensation claims”, declared the VZBV in a statement.
Reacting to the ruling, Mercedes reiterated its opinion that “the interpretation of the extremely complex provisions (regarding the infringing devices) was, at least, defensible at the time; and was not, in any case, done with the intention of acting illegally”.
In 2021, the consumer association estimated that “up to 50,000” Mercedes vehicles would be affected by CO2 emission cheating, a number much lower than the one filed against VW, the main manufacturer affected by the ‘dieselgate’.
In the previous class action, the first of its kind in Germany, the consumer defense organization won a trial that ended in 2020 with an out-of-court settlement between VW and the claimants.
According to VZBV, nearly 250,000 customers of the manufacturer received compensation totaling around €750 million.
It is worth noting that Volkswagen admitted, in September 2015, to equipping up to 11 million car engines worldwide with software capable of manipulating emission levels, triggering the ‘dieselgate’ scandal.
