Dieselgate trial gets underway at High Court
Before we go:
Car manufacturers decided they would rather cheat to prioritise “customer convenience” and sell cars than comply with the law on deadly pollutants, the first trial day of the largest group action in English legal history has been told.
More than a decade after the original “dieselgate” scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that manufacturers deliberately installed software to rig emissions tests.
They allege the “prohibited defeat devices” could detect when the cars were under test conditions and ensure that harmful NOx emissions were kept within legal limits, duping regulators and drivers.
Should the claim be upheld, estimated damages could exceed £6bn. The three-month hearing that opened at London’s high court on Monday will focus on vehicles sold by five manufacturers - Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot/Citroen - from 2009. In “real-world” conditions, when driven on the road, lawyers argue, the cars produced much higher levels of emissions.
The judgment on the five lead defendants will also bind other manufacturers including Jaguar Land Rover, Vauxhall/Opel, Volkswagen/Porsche, BMW, FCA/Suzuki, Volvo, Hyundai-Kia, Toyota and Mazda, whose cases are not being heard to reduce the case time and costs.
Lawyers for the defendants will make opening statements later this week. The car manufacturers deny having used prohibited defeat devices.
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Closing summary
On Wall Street, stocks have extended gains, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq rising by 2%, reversing some of Friday’s heavy losses, when it closed 3.6% lower. Investor’s fears over the US-China tariff war (which triggered the sell-off) have subsided somewhat, after Donald Trump adopted a more conciliatory tone on Sunday.
European markets have staged small gains, while Asian stocks tumbled overnight.
The global financial system is vulnerable to shocks amid a recent surge in the price of shares and other assets, Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has warned.
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Thank you for reading. We’ll be back tomorrow. Take care – JK
