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Legal Loophole Offers Volkswagen Criminal Immunity
An anonymous reader writes: According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled) a loophole in the 1970 Clean Air Act could make it impossible for U.S. prosecutors to subject Volkswagen to criminal charges over its use of standards-dodging 'defeat devices' in its emissions-testing software. Prosecutors are now reported to be considering alternative methods, including (considerably lesser) charges that Volkswagen lied to regulation authorities.
So long as the evil sociopaths who run the company are able to evade any meaningful censure, all is well! Doubtless some simpering worthless patsies will be found to take the blame while the real instigators are not only allowed to go free, but doubtless profit immeasurably.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
None of which explain what exactly is the loophole.
"There's a loophole there" - is all I could get. the WSJ article is paywalled.
Any ideas? IANAL so, to me, it's a mystery.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Who's worming their way out?
Sounds like the prosecutors are trying to make a case that won't get thrown out.
You can't just make up law as you go along because it's morally wrong.
If the rulebook says "When we plug in our testing machine, your car needs to be emitting X, Y and Z", then they were totally within the rules.
you mean following the law is "worming out of it"?
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Beyond the emissions stuff what about their claims to the public?
Mileage. Emissions. All those consumers have valid legal claims that they were lied to. Regardless of cheating the emissions test, the consumers were told something that it turns out VW knew was a complete lie.
part of the deal to get the CAA passed was to eliminate criminal consequences for the car manufacturers. it was ALREADY known.
I'll bet l that California and the dozen or so other CARB states could still prosecute. At minimum they could change the smog test methodogy to defeat the defeat so that the cars cannot get a smog cert and could not be registered. This would open the door to civil suits for sure.
So charge them with fraud if they can't be charged under the clean air act. They deliberately misrepresented their product to customers to make greater profits, seems like a textbook case of fraud to me. Of course, since they are a large corporation they will probably skate with a small fine. You get the government you voted for, I hope all the people who vote for the corporatists each election are happy with the outcome.
Enigma
So no criminal liability in that particular Act. However, never underestimate the ability of an awful lot of Americans behind a class action suit to make a company wish it had never been incorporated. Well, at least for a few months until the coffers are replenished.
I also suspect that in the absence of reprisal under the specific legislation, that other less specific legislation may apply. I doubt that "conspiracy to poison US citizens" will get very far but there is lots of case law to dig through. M'learned friends will have a field day as always.
Then there is the situation in Europe. I heard on the news today that 1.2M cars are affected in the UK alone. The population of the EU as a whole is rather more than twice that of the US and given that VW is a German firm and likely to have more customers here then they are royally screwed.
Now, who else makes diesel cars: I doubt that VW is the only firm to do this ...
Indeed. It's just awful that people who didn't break the law can't be punished for not doing so.
If an individual did this, they would have manufactured a list of charges a mile long by now based on the craziest of legal theories.
Here, fraud presents itself quite naturally and they can't seem to find it.
They committed a few million counts of fraud.
Well... if there's no crime to charge them with, they're not technically guilty of anything.
Except for being lying asshats.
Seriously though, they already admitted to what they did. They're not trying to hide it, everyone knows they're guilty of something, it's just that what they are guilty appears to be not as serious a breach of the law as people thought it would be. Sort of like finding out that if you're caught doing 100 mph in a school zone, the ticket is the same as if you'd done 5 over. Oops.
I'm sure VW doesn't have the same "get out of jail free" card in Europe. This means there could be cases filed by *every single country*...
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
I'm not sure about the precise legal definition of racketeering, but the Wikipedia definition of a racket is:
That sounds a lot like what Volkswagen did to me. And RICO is often used to go after organizations that weasel out of responsibility for their misdeeds through loopholes. And, of course, there's the second part: Corrupt Organizations. And that fits Volkswagen to the tee... corrupt as hell and rotten to the core.
Imagine all the people...
And not because it lets the car companies get away with something.
The prosecutor is considering prosecuting Volkswagen for "lying to the authorities". "They lied to the authorities" is a catchall crime that the government often brings when it finds itself unable to convict someone for an actual crime. This is a bad, bad, thing because you can't just refuse to speak to the government, and pretty much anyone is going to say something when questioned by the government that can be spun as a "lie", even if they just forgot, were misheard, or told an actual lie but one that has no bearing on the case.
The people cheering for this are really cheering for the idea that the government can put anyone in jail at a whim, because that's what the crime of "lying to the government" amounts to. It makes a mockery of the idea of a fair trial, and the fact that in this case the government decided to use this trick on a deserving target doesn't make it any less horrible.
The assumption is you bought it because of it's pep and mileage. VW "fixes" the problem, both take a huge hit. Do you still want the car? Will VW buy it back? How about resale value? The Kelly Blue Book value just took a huge hit as the pep and mileage went way down. Who pays for that?
I for one am glad I didn't buy a diesel car in the last 10 years, sounds like a nightmare for those who did.
Who's worming their way out?
Sounds like the prosecutors are trying to make a case that won't get thrown out.
You can't just make up law as you go along because it's morally wrong.
You could send them to jail if you wanted to. Fraud, false statements to government, criminal conspiracy, etc...
Just maybe not under the clean air act.
Here, fraud presents itself quite naturally and they can't seem to find it.
Perhaps they are worried that the US government could be charged with fraud too since it seems they passed an act which they said would make it illegal for car manufacturers to make highly polluting cars but which, it appears, does nothing of the sort.
Congress has immunity from lying. No, really. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The classical purpose and function of US government regulatory agencies is to indemnify the industries which they are charged with regulating from any legal repercussions resulting from egregious and outlandish acts of greed and irresponsibility.
This is just another case.
a legal loophole?
found by corporate lawyers?
I'm shocked. SHOCKED.
I'm going to go home, re-evaluate my life, and stop selling death sticks.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
But section 203(a)3(B) of the Clear Air Act is the one that mentions defeat devices.
and the punishment for violating that,
SEC. 205. CIVIL PENALTIES. .....
any person who violates section
203(a)(3)(B) shall be subject to a civil penalty of not more than
$2,500
No criminal charges, only $2,500 per car.
When the EPA tested the vehicles they did not assume that there would be this level of overt lying and manipulation. There have been other instances of bad behavior in the past, but these were caught in the normal course of events. This was deliberately intended to evade regulations, and VW has already admitted as much. So if management admits they were breaking the rules, how can you try and blame the EPA?
If the EPA or other government agencies did their job correctly, they would start with the assumption that the companies they deal with are run by degenerate psychopaths who will do anything, up to and including mass murder to make a buck. That certainly describes Ford and their failing key ignition switch, which by Ford's own estimate killed around 200 people. It is certain that the death toll is higher; given the money at stake, why should they stop lying now if they can get away with it? And previous to that there was Toyota and the cover-up of their sudden acceleration problem. So it's not like WV is that exceptional.
But when the regulators try and do a thorough job then business interests start squealing like stuck pigs and scream about how "ebil gomment is distroying the free interprize". Then they go out and buy a few more congress critters, and keep on lying and stealing for profit. And asshats like you are always there to cheer them on. Too bad you didn't die in a defective Ford or Toyota; it might have taught you something about how the world really works.
Why is Snark Required?
Big bird here, VW has tens of thousands of employees and hundreds of thousands of small investors who had fuck all to do with this. Sure, vigorously pursue and punish the people who were knowingly involved, but for fuck's sake leave the rest of them alone to get on with their lives.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
You know, Mercedes doesn't really sell many of their diesel passenger cars in the US like they do in Europe. I suspect the obstacle is the stringent EPA regulations limiting their ability to deliver a vehicle in the US with compelling gas mileage AND performance.
Mercedes management needs to be scrutinized by shareholders right now. While Volkswagen has been selling dozens of thousands of diesel vehicles in the US, Mercedes management should have been demanding their engineers create similar products. When the engineers shrugged their shoulders saying, "It can't be done without cheating the tests," Mercedes management should have conducted independent tests on Volkswagen TDI cars and alerted the EPA of the fraud. Where's the competitive research?!?!? Mercedes really has dropped the ball here.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The classical purpose and function of US government regulatory agencies is to indemnify the industries which they are charged with regulating from any legal repercussions resulting from egregious and outlandish acts of greed and irresponsibility.
This is just another case.
Actually, in this case the US government seems to have failed in it's primary purpose. Now that this loop hole has been used it will have to be closed because of public outrage and I'm pretty sure the senators who created this loop hole intended that it should be used by a US car manufacturer, not a European one. Heads must be rolling on capitol hill.
A lot of laws have loopholes and some are also inconclusive in their writing where punctuation can change the meaning of the law entirely. Realize that in some cases the law that was registered may have been changed by a clerk around the time of the voting of the law so that what the voters think they vote for isn't what they really vote for. (See another article about the need for signing of proposed law texts to prevent this)
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Utter bullshit.
You could blame the EPA if their testing procedures were faulty, e.g. they only test the car at low speed or with special fuel or whatever.
In this case, the only problem with the test procedure was that it was known to the manufacturer. In fact, that the testing procedure is consistent (i.e. always the same) is an absolute requirement because you want consistent, i.e. comparable, results. Maybe you could have kept the exact conditions a secret, but even then they would be fairly easy to guess correctly.
Heck, without reading any in-depth articles I've glanced that they used speed as one indicator. Basically, the code said "if wheels are turning but you're not moving, assume you are on a test rig". That's not rocket science. And not the EPAs fault.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
As I understand it they are within the bounds of CO2, the problem is to get that efficiency it burns hot which is great for CO2/mile but also causes the Nitrogen in the air to burn producing NOx. That's the problem, a hot efficient engine pumps out too much of another pollutant that the UK isn't focussed on. Ex ministers are today saying that the focus on CO2 from the 90s when these regulations came in was a mistake.
Fraud is not illegal in off iself. Fraud is a class of laws covering types of crime or civil laws. Basically, fraud is just a type of crime and the crime itself needs defined by law.
I see a lot of people who do not understand this. But ask yourself, does a magician face criminal penalties for doing tricks? That's fraud by definition. How about a 12 year old who tricks her brother into doing the dishes by saying her parents told her to tell him that.
Now something that is fraud is your ISP saying your service will be up to a speed then limiting i w to a slower speed. (Up to 5m and limiting it to up to 2m.) But no one seemed to be able to find any law making it illegal.
That was GM, not Ford.
love is just extroverted narcissism
IIRC, as a rule of thumb, California emission standards follow pretty closely the European ones. If VW is prosecuted in CA, then it is likely to be prosecuted in EU too.
Historically, California and Japan have vied for the title of nation with the most restrictive emissions testing laws. Yeah, I said it, I meant it. However, these days the US federal emissions standards are very strict, especially when it comes to diesels. There is some debate over whether the ultra-low NOx emission requirements are necessary given the reduction in fuel consumption (and thus in production of both particulates and CO2) which comes with small diesels which produce a bit more NOx, but perhaps that is a separate discussion. My understanding is that the upcoming euro standards are more strict than US federal standards for gasoline.
California however has its own mandate to sell zero-emissions vehicles (15% by 2025) which it tried to make happen some years ago, see Who Killed the Electric Car? etc. So there's still that.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"