VW Dieselgate Payout: Yes To USA, No To Europe

Volkswagen AG has no intentions of offering a compensation to European customer and the same was made clear by Volkswagen Chief Executive Matthias Muller who was recently in Brussels to meet the European Union Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska. While Volkswagen is in middle of settling a huge $15 billion claim ($10 billion towards car owners, $2 billion towards environmental remediation fund and $2.7 billion towards promoting zero-emission technology) for its emission scandal in the US, Muller has made it clear that no such payout can be done in Europe.

According to him, stringent emission laws in the US made it difficult for Volkswagen to fix the cars in order to make them US compliant. While in Europe, the laws are not that rigorous. However, against the 5,00,000 US customers who were affected by the scam, Europe has as many as nine million. So, compensating all those who were affected in Europe can create severe financial troubles for the automaker. Muller expressed, "Volkswagen is solid financially, but you don’t have to be a mathematician to see that damage payments in some arbitrary amount would even be too much for Volkswagen to cope with."  

    This, however, did not go down well with Bienkowska as she said, "It is unfair if Volkswagen is hiding behind these legal considerations. Volkswagen should voluntarily provide European car owners with compensation that is comparable to what it is paying the US customers."

Volkswagen will soon be recalling the affected diesel cars in Europe to fix the faulty software that caused a major stir in the automobile world. Ever since September last year, when Volkswagen admitted to foul play, it has faced criticism from consumers and legal authorities all over the world.