“Has the time of lawsuits come?”

Germany’s carmakers might face a wave of lawsuits after reports over possible collusion to fix costs and technology emerged last week, business newspaper Handelsblatt reports. Tens of thousands of customers might seek compensation for “possibly paying a much too high price” for their vehicles, estimates Klaus Müller, head of the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv). The European Commission and Germany’s Federal Cartel Authority are currently investigating whether the carmakers have broken the law by agreeing on suppliers and technological details of their exhaust gas treatment systems, the article says. The EU’s consumer protection commissioner Vera Jourova said “enabling class-action lawsuits will relieve our judiciary system. And it strengthens lost faith of Europeans in the rule of law”.     

Read the article in German here.

For more information, see the CLEW dossier The Energiewende and German carmakers.