Volkswagen agrees to pay US$1.2 billion fine for cheating on diesel emissions tests
‘We work with vigour on dealing with our past,’ VW CEO Herbert Diess said. ‘Further steps are necessary to gradually restore trust again in the company and the auto industry’
Volkswagen AG agreed to pay a €1 billion euro (US$1.2 billion) fine imposed by German prosecutors, taking another step to move past its almost three-year-old diesel emissions scandal.
VW assumes responsibility for its actions and accepts the fine, the German carmaker said Wednesday in a regulatory filing in Braunschweig, Germany. It said active regulatory proceedings against the company have ended, and it expects the settlement to have a positive impact on other proceedings in Europe.
“We work with vigour on dealing with our past,” VW Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess said in a separate statement. “Further steps are necessary to gradually restore trust again in the company and the auto industry.”
VW has earmarked costs of about 26 billion euros related to rigged engine-control software in as many as 11 million diesel cars worldwide. The scandal, which came to light in the United States in 2015, has already cost the automaker $20 billion in fines and civil settlements in the US.
Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating on US emissions tests by equipping diesel cars with software that turned on emissions controls when the vehicles were on test stands, and reduced the controls during normal driving.
Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn was charged in March in the US with wire fraud and conspiring to violate the federal Clean Air Act. Two lower-ranking Volkswagen executives have been sentenced to prison in the United States, while five others have been charged but not been apprehended.
The German prosecutors are investigating Winterkorn and 48 others in connection with the emissions scandal.
