How Mercedes buyers come for damages

Now it has that Daimler Group but still caught. More than 770,000 cars drive on Europe’s roads with software that shuts off exhaust gas treatment far too often. And in Germany the group must call back 240,000 of these cars in which this software is used.

Even more: With his recall order, the new Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) also takes the Daimler chief Dieter Zetsche personally targeted: He had in 2015, fraud software as VW was not an issue at the Daimler Group : One had made “no manipulation on our vehicles”. And “a defeat device, meaning a function that restricts the effectiveness of the exhaust aftertreatment inadmissible, is not used at Mercedes-Benz.” A lie?

The announced recall has of course consequences for Daimler shareholders: The share price collapsed since the first recall for the van Vito in May, has since lost in just three weeks, more than ten percent. Zetsche had already set aside money to be prepared for the scandal: the reserves now amount to 14 billion euros. Probably he has to refill now , The business is doing well otherwise. In May, Daimler sold almost 200,000 cars worldwide, a good two percent more than in the previous year.

The scandal has even more consequences for hundreds of thousands of Mercedes buyers. At the moment, besides owners of some Vito vans, countless buyers of the C-Class model C220d and the SUV GLC220d are also affected.

Suddenly, they have to make friends with the idea of ​​possibly having a cheater diesel in the yard. Her car is probably losing value.

The lawyers are in the starting blocks

Daimler has to expect that many of these buyers will now claim damages. The buyers of new Daimler vehicles are in their majority not private individuals, but companies. The respective accountants will be cool, which costs the malaise of the car maker their company and probably try to collect the damage to the car company. The head of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHT), Eric Schweizer, said after the Daimler recalls that “diesel affair and driving bans are unsettling large parts of the German economy”.

The lawyers are already in the starting blocks. And they have good conditions:

• Just recently the Berlin law firm Werdermann & von Rüden was able to do that nationwide first fraud judgment in the context of the diesel scandal against the company. The client had acquired a Vito for just under 60,000 euros. The district court Hagen condemned Daimler to take back the car against use – because of immoral intentional damage (§ 826 BGB). Similarly, many courts have already ruled in the case of VW. Daimler told me Thursday that they will appeal. “We can not understand the verdict.” The written judgment is not yet available (Az. 9 O ​​76/18).
• Before the Regional Court Stuttgart In addition, several law firms have also reached a so-called proof resolution: There, a neutral expert is now to clarify whether Daimler has used cheat software. The assessment of the Kraftfahrtbundesamt weighs heavily. The officials are convinced that such software is in use in several variants.
• Perhaps more important: at District Court Münster (Ref. 04 O 68/17), the judges even reversed the burden of proof in a case conducted by the law firm Rogert & Ulbrich – Daimler now has to prove there that no illegal defeat device is used.

Also a number of other law firms are on the move to take for their clients the richest German carmaker in recourse. Occasionally, law firms also offer a free initial examination of the concerns of Mercedes buyers.

Different ways for damages

What is not there yet are offers from litigation financiers like VW, which would also allow Mercedes buyers to sue without financial risk. But who has a legal expenses insurance, now has good prospects that this covers the lawsuit.

In the end, there will be different ways for the Mercedes buyers like VW to have their damage replaced

• 1. The warranty , If Daimler has to improve the software of the cars, that is a defect. And if Daimler did not lie and the engine software was also set up to protect the engines, after a retrofit the danger to the engine would not be excluded, in any case, another shortcoming. For such defects, the seller of the car is liable, so often the dealer. WARRANTIES Two years after the purchase of new cars, and one year after purchase for used vehicles.
• Second Other plaintiffs will try from the outset to attack the company fraud and Violation of applicable law to get into liability. Daimler boss Zetsche has said that he will appeal against the recall of the Federal Motor Transport Authority. If he has to shut down the software for some hundreds of thousands of cars now, but at least the Federal Motor Transport Authority believes that the software was illegal. According to this view, customers have been cheated by programming the defeat device.
• Third Who has leased his Mercedes or financed by a bank, can solve the problem with the diesel possibly legally elegant: He can the car on the so-called revocation Joker hand back. This means the fact that many of these contracts contain a faulty cancellation policy that makes it possible to revoke the contract even today. As a customer, they will also need legal support. A list of such withdrawal procedures of specialized lawyers see this guide ,
• 4th Finally, it will also be at Daimler shareholders give, who feel rocked by the group. And, in fact, the question also arises as to whether the Group has always provided its shareholders with timely and truthful information about economic risks that are threatening in connection with the diesel scandal. Without the right ad-hoc releases, Daimler also vulnerable at this point , And if Zetsche’s early determination not to use fraud software turned out to be untrue, anyway.

Mercedes is only the second stone, which now really gets rolling. VW has just started a fine of one billion euros accepted by the prosecution of Brunswick.

With recent measurements on the exhausts of the cars on our roads, however, it has turned out that it is not even the German manufacturers whose diesel blow out the most nitrogen oxides. Also the exhaust gas from the exhausts of Renaults, Fiat and Fords is conspicuously heavily loaded.

And of course, these manufacturers are also asking themselves sooner rather than later whether they may have been illegal and whether they might have been liable to pay compensation to their customers and shareholders.

Actually, the question is not even more. At least Fiat is due to excessive nitrogen oxide emissions on file with US authorities , Renault has a fraud on the hoe in France, after an anti-fraud unit of the French authorities has determined that Renault in the exhaust measurements, the authorities fooled around for 25 years , The anti-fraud authority has passed on its findings to the local prosecutor.

The French consumer organization Que Choisir has effectively become a co-plaintiff connected to the preliminary investigation ,

The exhaust gas scandal is only just beginning. Sometimes I am asked at the moment which car I would buy, if I had to. If I had to, I would buy a hybrid. All other questions are based on usage preferences (family coach or sports convertible), ecological aspects (which is particularly efficient) and, of course, the taste.