Ten years after the beginning of the Exhaust scandals is Volkswagen still busy with the regulation of damage and claims. So far, the group has spent a total of more than 32 billion euros. In the Netherlands, Volkswagen has now agreed with three interest groups in the course of a comparison – they are the foundations “Car Claim”, “Diesel Emissions Justice” and the “Volkswagen Group Diesel Efficiency”.
“More than 100,000 damaged customers are now entitled to compensation,” says lawyer Quirijn Bongaerts (41) of the Birkway law firm in Amsterdam. She had taken over the mandate for “Diesel Emissions Justice” and, like the other two organizations, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the car buyers. They argued that the cheating software used used their diesel vehicles more pollutants than allowed and that the cars had lost significantly in value.
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Long -term dispute: According to his own statements, the Dutch lawyer Quirijn Bongaerts processed against Volkswagen for six years
Photo: Monique Shaw
Volkswagen confirmed the agreement. “The agreement is a further step in the final clarification of the diesel issue in an important European market,” said a group spokesman on request. In 2015, Volkswagen had admitted to selling at least eleven million cars worldwide, which were equipped with software that made them appear less environmentally harmful to laboratory tests than they were on the street and in real operation.
In the course of the legal processing of the scandal Managers of the group are sentenced under criminal law. The criminal proceedings against former VW boss Martin Winterkorn (78) were temporarily stopped in July for health reasons. Winter grain is accused of commercial fraud, market manipulation and wrongly false statements. The presumption of innocence applies.
Comparison concerns models from VW, Audi, Seat and Škoda
The comparison made in the Netherlands ended a total of five legal proceedings by the three interest associations against Volkswagen, the Dutch importer and dealers. The deal applies to diesel vehicles of the Volkswagen brands acquired in the Netherlands, Audi,, Seat and Škoda, which had come onto the market with an EA-189 engine between 2008 and 2015.
The Dutch owners and lessists of the vehicles can expect compensation between 300 and 2500 euros. The actual amount depends on a number of factors, such as the model, the time of purchase, but also the total number of claims for the same vehicle.
Affected customers must have their claims to compensation by December 10 on the website www.dieselkoord.nl
register. To do this, you have to prove that you have an EA-189 diesel vehicle or have obsessed in the past. Bongearts speaks of a “great day” for consumers and companies. “We would not have reached an agreement without the legal dispute,” the lawyer is convinced. For six years, Bongarts processed against Volkswagen in his own words.
Guido van Woerkom (70), head of the Car Claim Foundation, was already involved in discussions with industry on emission standards in 2008 on behalf of consumer organizations. “So I felt cheated by Volkswagen’s software,” he told the Dutch newspaper “de Telegraaf”.
“I felt cheated by Volkswagen’s software.”
Guido van Woerkom (70), head of the Car Claim Foundation
Van Woerkom, formerly also head of the Dutch traffic club AnwB, to a certain extent the counterpart to the ADAC, dealt with the diesel scandal for a good ten years. “We fought hard for a fair regulation for Dutch car owners.” He was now glad that the parties had found an “appropriate solution”. The representatives of the two other interest organizations were similar.
But Van Woerkom has probably not ended his mission yet. According to its own statements, the Car Claim Foundation is still in legal proceedings against Mercedes, Renault, Stellantis and Citroën involved, which are also said to have used shutdown devices. In no these cases have so far been comparable negotiations.
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As early as 2021, a Dutch commercial court decided that Volkswagen had to pay compensation. According to lawyer Bongaerts, this was a declaratory action – comparable to a sample decision in a German model procedure. The injured diesel owners would then have had to sue the compensation with the corresponding costs. Both the VW and the plaintive organization have subsequently appealed, which is now withdrawn in view of the comparison.