Volkswagen owners take compensation claims to High Court

Volkswagen is heading to London’s High Court today - Tuesday 27 March - to defend itself against thousands of compensation claims in relation to the emissions scandal.

The three-day hearing will set a deadline for claims against the German carmaker within England and Wales and determine which law firm will lead the legal push for compensation from thousands of Volkswagen, Audi, Skoda and SEAT owners.

The case concerns more than one million cars from the Volkswagen group that were sold with the EA189 diesel engine between 2009 and 2015. The engine was fitted with sophisticated NOx (nitrogen oxide) emissions software designed to detect laboratory testing conditions and artificially lower emissions.

Volkswagen has paid compensation and bought cars back from owners in North America, but refused to do so for those in Europe arguing that the emissions software does not break any EU laws. As a result it has only offered European car owners a technical fix to remove the software. To date, Volkswagen has applied the ‘fix’ to 842,000 vehicles in the UK. It claims that the “overwhelming majority” of its customers are satisfied with the technical update.

Speaking to HonestJohn.co.uk, a spokesperson for Volkswagen said: “The hearing was originally scheduled by Claimants for January 2017 and was ultimately adjourned for over a year due to a lack of proper coordination and a serious legal dispute between Your Lawyers and Harcus Sinclair, who were then acting on the matter. This resulted in them being debarred from acting in the litigation and considerable delays.

"We have made it clear that we do not anticipate that our UK customers have suffered any loss or financial detriment as a result of the NOx issue"

“We intend to defend these claims robustly and are confident of a successful outcome. It has not been established that the relevant software is an illegal defeat device.  We have made it clear that we do not anticipate that our UK customers have suffered any loss or financial detriment as a result of the NOx issue. In particular, we note that an adverse financial impact on the residual value of affected vehicles as a result of the NOx issue has not been identified.

“The inaccurate messaging being provided via the media is an attempt to encourage people into signing up to their court case in order to try to make the litigation more economically viable for the financial funders running the case,” the spokesperson concluded.

A survey carried out by law firm Slater and Gordon – which represents more than 40,000 disgruntled owners – claims that 40 per cent of those questioned have suffered technical problems with their car since having the technical update, with one in 10 saying that their car had experienced a loss of power.