2024 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 21:13
First the talks about a settlement for diesel customers failed, now VW and the consumer advocates are again negotiating with each other.
The higher regional court (OLG) Braunschweig announced on Thursday that both sides had decided to do so. The model declaratory action of several hundred thousand diesel drivers against VW because of excessively high emissions from their vehicles is already at the OLG.
spoods.de
"On the advice of the court," the parties to the dispute wanted to talk to each other again in front of a so-called judge, it said. This should moderate the discussions as a kind of mediator. The head of the OLG and former State Secretary in the Lower Saxony Ministry of Justice, Wolfgang Scheibel, will take on the task.
Aborted a week ago
Last week, VW and the Federal Association of Consumer Organizations (vzbv) broke off their initial out-of-court consultations on a settlement for the more than 400,000 diesel customers from the test case and blamed each other for it. Above all, they blamed themselves for having increased the time pressure through ultimatums - in the end the solution that had actually already been targeted failed. Volkswagen then decided to make the customer themselves an offer totaling around 830 million euros.
Both sides declared to accept the invitation of the OLG. On the matter, however, they stuck to their respective positions. "The requirement that a comparison must be fair, transparent and verifiable has not changed," emphasized the vzbv.
VW speaks of transparent processing
The consumer advocates had expressed doubts that VW would grant each individual customer a payment based on clearly comprehensible criteria in the "direct comparison" offered. VW chief legal advisor Manfred Döss told the dpa news agency that the process would of course be "transparently designed" and independently controlled. The company is now about to finally “make peace with customers”. VW announced on Thursday that it would also take part in the moderated discussion at the OLG.
Döss said about his own offer: "After all, we want customers to accept the offer when they have decided for themselves that it is the right thing for them." The processing system should be in place by the end of March. «We will set up an IT solution in which the customer can enter key data such as the vehicle identification number and other information from the registration papers. Then he will receive an offer tailored to his personal situation."
The point of contention was attorney's fees
There was initially no date for the quality negotiation - nor for the expected follow-up negotiations on the model lawsuit, which will continue in parallel to the settlement talks at the OLG. In its own offer to diesel customers, VW wants to stagger the calculation of the compensation amount according to the purchase date of the car between 2008 and 2015 and a total of nine different vehicle classes. Depending on the individual case, between 1350 and 6257 euros should be paid.
The conflict over breaking off the bilateral negotiations was sparked by the amount of fees for lawyers of the vzbv. VW was bothered by the fact that a flat-rate claim of 50 million euros in remuneration had not been justified. (dpa)
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