Volkswagen Closes In on $4.3 Billion US Settlement in Diesel Scandal (bloomberg.com)

Volkswagen said it's closing in on a deal with U.S. authorities on a $4.3 billion settlement to resolve civil and criminal allegations stemming from its emissions-cheating scandal. From a report on Bloomberg: The agreement, which has yet to be finalized, would lead to a financial expense that exceeds current provisions, the German automaker said. It also includes a guilty plea to some criminal charges, strengthening compliance systems and installing an independent monitor for three years, the Wolfsburg, Germany-based automaker said Tuesday in a statement. VW's management and supervisory boards are scheduled to review the settlement today or Wednesday and may raise provisions related to the scandal, which currently total 18.2 billion euros ($19.2 billion). A final agreement also needs to be approved by U.S. courts. The U.S. Justice Department declined to comment on Volkswagen's statement.

Comments

double standards

[Avarist]

So will anyone complain about the US targeting European companies for cash, or is that only allowed when it's the EU that does it?

Re:double standards

[Joce640k]

Only allowed when the EU targets a USA company.

Don't look at me, I don't make the rules!

Re:double standards

[plague911]

Actually the EU already is after their blood money from VW.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/vw-faces-eu-push-for-fines-in-20-member-states-2016-09-05

As such I doubt that anyone would consider this an unfair targeting of VW.

Re:double standards

[serviscope_minor]

Actually the EU already is after their blood money from VW

Well, the OP was complaining that whenever the EU goes after a US company, there are scores of complaints about how the EU is punishing American business for being American. This way round, there are always far fewer complaints for some reason, i.e. none.

It's indicitave of a double standard, not some fault on the part of the EU or the US.

Re:double standards

[plague911]

I am sure there are dead enders on this, but the complaints come in when one of two things happen.

1) The EU targets a US company but the US deems their behavior acceptable

2) The EU targets a US company but lets similar behavior by non-US companies slide.

The former is the most common issue.

Re:double standards

[ShanghaiBill]

Only allowed when the EU targets a USA company.

This situation is not quite the same as the EU targeting Google or Facebook.
1. VW clearly broke the law.
2. Their actions were illegal in both the US and the EU.
3. VW employs a lot of people in America, and has a big factory in Chattanooga, TN.
When the EU goes after American tech companies it is for questionable infractions about some BS European censorship issue like "the right to be forgotten" or a random user expressing unpopular historical opinions, or maybe a photo of some chick wearing a burkini on a French beach. Americans care much less about what people wear, and even less about what they say.

Buyback deal

[DogDude]

To give them credit, VW has handled the buyback very well. It's been a smooth, orderly process, and the cash amount was good. I doubt they'll lose very many customers over this, because they handled it so well. I think they'll survive this.

Re:Buyback deal

[Paul Carver]

I don't think there should have been a buyback at all. Why should VW be allowed to make their customers jump through hoops or file paperwork. The way it should have been ordered by the courts to work is this:

1) VW owner drives car to VW dealer.
2) Dealer looks up original sticker price (if necessary, look up VIN to find if it was purchased at a different dealer and get the sticker price there.)
3) Customer picks out a car off the lot (possibly with a restriction that the sticker price must be within x% of the sticker price of the car they are returning)
4) If sticker price of new car is lower, VW issues customer a check for the difference in price
5) If sticker price is higher, customer pays the difference (or chooses a different car off the lot)
6) Customer drives away in new car

If customer can't find a single car on the lot that they would want to have, they can go to any other VW dealer and have the same options.

If customer doesn't want a VW at all they can still follow the steps above and sell the brand new car. They ought to be able to get enough from a used car dealer to be worth at least as much as the used price of the VW they originally bought.

VW should do all the paperwork. All the customer should have to do is sign the papers agreeing to a straight swap of the old for new plus the dollar amount of the difference in sticker prices.

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

What you're describing is absurd and childish. The world doesn't work that way. VW needs to have a signed contract with everybody, there needs to be a verification of ownership, transfer of title, and all of that good stuff.

Re:Buyback deal

[DogDude]

Dummy, the onus IS on Volkswagen. That's what I said. It's silly and childish to expect to swing by any VW dealer and swap the car, like it's a fucking video game.

Re:Buyback deal

[Bender0x7D1]

I turn in my Jetta TDI on Thursday. All I have to do is bring the car, my key fobs, and the title, and it will take about 30 minutes to do the paperwork. Everything else is how you described it.

All I had to do was, verify my VIN on the website, and tell them if I had a lien or not. Then I uploaded my registration and title to show that I am the sole owner of my car, and got my appointment to sign the paperwork.

Overall, it is going to take less than half the time of buying a new vehicle to return the old one - and that isn't bad.

The reason there are multiple steps is that there are multiple things that have to be done when you are buying or selling a car - including dealing with registration with 50 different states, plus DC, and other protectorates (Virgin Islands, Guam, etc.).

Looks like GM got off easy

[haruchai]

GM's penalty for the ignition switch fiasco is less than $1 billion for a deliberate defect about which the the company tried to cover up and lied about for years and killed over 100 people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...?

Who did VW piss off or forget to blow?

I'm not saying VW should pay less but I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[Anonymous Coward]

GM designed a switch that worked in most circumstances, but failed for a corner case.
GM initially shipped not intending to cause harm.
GM did not intentionally break the law.
GM was slow to fix it once caught.

VW did the reverse on all counts.

Both transgressions contributed to the deaths of folks.
My bad-o-meter for which is worse points to VW.

The interesting question here is what punishment will happen personally to the a few of the top folks in charge.
Jail time sounds fair, but if the settlement eliminates that possibility,then in exchange it should shred any Golden parachutes and clawback some bonuses.
Lacking that, the lesson is it's ok to break the law because the company will take care of you.
Want to place odds on what the lesson turns out to be?

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[cdrudge]

I'm not saying VW should pay less but I don't understand how what they did merits higher fines

Intent. GM didn't set out to kill people with a design flat. VW intended to deceive regulators and the public by deliberately cheating the system.

Re:Looks like GM got off easy

[silentcoder]

Then by your reasoning there is
1) No reason to have air quality laws at all
2) No justification for holding companies to account that violate them.

Since there are "direct" deaths - they bear no responsibility ?

Sorry, but I don't buy that reasoning for two reasons:
1) It's been an established point of law that indirectly, but knowingly, causing a death can bear culpability for over 2000 years.
2) It's batshit crazy.

The comparison was in how much harm was done - as that is the just way to determine damages. Whether the harm was direct or indirect is utterly unimportant.

Now your talk about 'extrapolation' comes down to questioning the maths - there's just one problem, I KNOW the maths are wrong, after all there are quite a few numbers we don't have definitive answers for. On every one of those I took the generous approach of assuming the smallest possible values. Using REALISTIC likely values would quadruple or even quintiple the damages. So sure, the maths aren't great - but I did them to maximally benefit Volkswagen - nobody can say I used the unknowns to their detriment, I made assumptions ONLY in their favour.