The check for German carmaker Volkswagen’s diesel emissions scandal is about to grow by another $1 billion, according to The Wall Street Journa l.
The paper reported late Sunday that VW is close to agreeing compensation terms for drivers who bought the company’s larger and more luxurious diesels fitted with 3.0-liter engines. That includes sport utility vehicles from the Porsche and Audi brands.
It said that VW has agreed to take back and fix at its own cost some 60,000 vehicles from recent years, while buying back 20,000 older vehicles whose problems can’t be solved by some time in the workshop.
The settlement is expected to be unveiled by a San Francisco District Court later Monday.
A settlement of the claims against 3.0-liter cars clears up one of the biggest legal issues of the scandal that are still outstanding in the U.S.. VW had agreed earlier this year to pay some $10 billion in compensation to drivers and another $5 billion
VW has already agreed to pay drivers up to $10 billion in compensation and another $4.7 billion into remedial programs approved by the EPA to offset the excess emissions of its diesels. It has also shelled out $1.2 billion to smooth the ruffled feathers of its U.S. Dealers and agreed another $600 million with various state attorneys general. The deal over 3.0-liter cars would thus bring the running total up to $17.5 billion.
The company is still resisting pressure from European authorities to compensate the much larger number of drivers in the EU in the same way, but the company has so far argued that no such compensation is due because the vehicles weren’t illegal under EU law.
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It’s still not clear where criminal investigations into the responsibility of individual VW managers will end. In September, James Robert Liang, a German citizen, became the first former VW executive to plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud customers and regulators and promised to cooperate with ongoing U.S. Investigations. In Germany, state prosecutors are investigating whether former CEO Martin Winterkorn, once the highest-paid corporate boss in Germany, had illegally misled investors by withholding information about the scale of its problems with U.S. Regulators. Winterkorn had resigned in September 2015, albeit his protestations of ignorance were accepted at the time by the company’s board. Prosecutors are also investigating the role of Hans Dieter Pötsch, who was chief financial officer at the time but who has since been made chairman of the group supervisory board.
Under Winterkorn’s successor, Matthias Müller, VW has announced a radical shift to invest more heavily in developing electric vehicles, a shift that will cost thousands of jobs in its traditional engine and powertrain operations