Volkswagen Sued For Violating State Environmental Statutes With Dieselgate (theverge.com)

The attorneys general of New York, Massachusetts, and Maryland are suing Volkswagen for violating state environmental regulations with its diesel emissions cheating scandal. The states say that the car company has violated their air quality laws, combined with some sort of anti-fraud measure for the defeat mechanisms to bypass emissions testing. The move comes after many states agreed to a $14.7 billion settlement for violating consumer protection and EPA and California state environmental regulations. The Verge reports: "Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche defrauded thousands of Massachusetts consumers, polluted our air, and damaged our environment and then, to make matters worse, plotted a massive cover-up to mislead environmental regulators," said Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey in a statement. This was echoed by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman, who released his own statement saying "the allegations against Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche reveal a culture of deeply-rooted corporate arrogance, combined with a conscious disregard for the rule of law and the protection of public health and the environment."

Comments

Pierce the corporate veil

[hwstar]

For blatant environmental disregard such as this, the corporation should not offer protection to the officers and directors. The corporate veil should be pierced, and the state should go after the officers and directors both criminally and civilly. The corporate protection from liability should just be there to protect against legal action arising from unforeseen circumstances in the evolution of a company. In this case, the emissions rules were purposefully disregarded and, there should be a heavy price to pay for that.

Re:Pierce the corporate veil

[sittingnut]

iow you are saying, since this particular crime(unlike say crimes that led to financial crisis) is offends against western elite's(herds's) morality, it should be punished severely, ignoring due process, disregarding long established precedents and case law (all of which have solid well argued rationales), and with total disregard for obvious consequence of arbitrarily removing immunity of directors(collapse of the one of the greatest inventions of west, limited liability company ).

short sighted much?

Political motivation?

[bluefoxlucid]

Shortly after this started, someone reported that GM, Chrysler, and Ford performed substantially-similar to Volkswagen, with the caveat that Volkswagen was more efficient: everyone's vehicles are tuned to hit emissions standards in testing conditions, and quickly increase their output as you leave those standards; Volkswagen happened to enter a different mode of behavior under testing conditions, instead of playing the wink-and-nudge.

Someone accused everyone involved of protectionism, trying to push foreign companies out in order to strengthen local manufacture. I think it's more that people are more forgiving of villains who twirl their moustaches at you while you interact, as they feel they've gotten a fairer deal when someone violates the spirit of the rules than if the terms were hammered out and the other guy just bluntly cheated. Same outcome, but one of these pisses people off.

Those of us who are more level-headed (read: introverts) tend to miss the group-think and not care as much about the other guy being a dick (because of a lack of investment in squishy feelings of companionship), and so are a little less misgiving about the guy who brazenly cheated, and a little more concerned with the rules being set up such that cheating and playing by the rules are essentially the same thing, since this implies that the rules don't work (why have them at all if breaking them doesn't actually change anything?).

So my understanding is there is a larger problem here in which everyone gets to cheat, but most people do so in an acceptable way, and this is all a bunch of feel-good measure being taken to quell people's personal feelings of unfairness, and has actually no material impact on the world. That is to say: all the stuff about polluting your air and defrauding consumers is bullshit by way of literally every alternative being both acceptable and functionally identical.

Cash Grab

[Frosty Piss]

Sure, what VW did was flaky, bad, evill, and so on. But now we are getting into the "obligitory" cash grab, none of these law suites will result in resources to address "climate change" or give VW owners more than a cupon for a Big Mac.

Re:Cash Grab

[swb]

Fast-forward to some future election...

"When I was the attorney general, I stood up to crooked multinationals like Volkswagen and I made them pay for the environmental damage they did and their illegal business practices. I have always put the interests of this state first and I always will."

After the election...

"Amalgamated Mining, Pipelines and Smelting has been a bedrock of this state's economy for years, and I won't allow the environmental bureaucrats at the EPA to undermine the jobs and economy of this state. Their needless regulation runs counter to the economic security of our state."

Re: Testing on the street...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because other companies could not figure out how VW was doing something that seemed nearly ecomically impossible based on their own R&D into trying. I am in IT and my CIO is always telling me about some other company that is doing something cheaper and better. Often time when I reach out to my couterparts or colleges in those companies I find something much different and that neither CIO has the full story.