One of the cases that has reached the Court of Justice of the European Union opens the door for millions of European citizens to demand compensation for having bought cars with diesel engines that did not comply with emission regulations.
The diesel emissions scandal either “Diesel Gate” it erupted in September 2015 in the United States, when Volkswagen admitted to cheating with regulators. Shortly after, the scandal spread to the European Union -in addition to other countries- and more manufacturers, with tens of millions of people affected.
In short, most manufacturers were unable to make diesel engines (at the same time) powerful, reliable, ecological, low consumption and respectful of the environment. Through fraudulent programming, regulators and customers were misled.
Since emissions could not be kept within the limits of Euro 5 and Euro 6, the cheats programmed the anti-pollution systems to work only in certain circumstancesespecially those that were tested in homologations, and outside the defined range they polluted much more.
General perspective of the CJEU
Although several manufacturers have had to pay million-dollar fines in some countries of the European Union, it has not been widespread or similar to the fines that have fallen in the United States. Basically, the EU legal system was not prepared for widespread fraud affecting several Member States.
From the Court of Justice of the European Union comes a non-binding opinion of the attorney general, Athanasios Rantos, which may be an appetizer of the sentence, when it comes out, as a result of a claim from a German client. He says buyers of such cars are entitled to claim compensation from manufacturers who cheated.
But it must be each EU country that establishes the calculation scales, in proportion to the damage suffered. Rantos said in writing that each country must establish “effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions”although the legal changes that took place after 2015 closed the door so that something like this could happen again.
Courtroom of the Court of Justice of the European Union
How did the case reach the CJEU?
As is often the case, a court has a doubt and consults the European High Court. It all started when a German customer bought a Mercedes-Benz C 220 CDI used (it wasn’t even new) without knowing that there were fraudulent devices on board.
Upon learning of this, he filed a complaint against the manufacturer with the Ravensburg Regional Civil and Criminal Court. In doubt as to whether he could claim the client, although the manufacturer allegedly did not act in bad faith (fraud), a magistrate raised a query before the CJEU. He also asked about the mechanism for calculating the possible compensation.
Athanasios Rantos recalls that consumers can only purchase cars that have complied with European Union standards (a Member State grants homologation and is used for all the countries of the bloc), and given that the certificate of conformity (CoC) declares to comply with the rule, if there is fraud, the consumer is protected.
This documentary from Deutsche Welle (in Spanish) explains the entire scandal for those who miss it in so many details
The modus operandi of Volkswagen was to hide the real emissions of the vehicles when detecting a homologation testother manufacturers opted for a more subtle form, the thermal window. This means that fraud only occurs under specific conditions. Mercedes-Benz has for years denied committing fraud with diesel engines.
The Court of Justice of the European Union recalls that the conclusions of the advocate general are NOT a sentence, but a recommendation for the judges, and that the ruling will come later. Yes, there is usually little difference between what the attorney general thinks and what the judges end up ruling.