News, national

Australia’s highest court has upheld a record $ 125 million fine against German automaker Volkswagen for violating diesel emissions standards. The automarker lost its offer in the High Court for a special permit to appeal the 2019 penalty for misrepresenting vehicle exhaust emissions between 2011 and 2015. Volkswagen wanted to overturn the federal court sentence and replace the watchdog with a $ 75 million fine originally agreed with the Australian consumer. The Federal Court of Justice rejected this in 2019, however, with Judge Lindsay Foster describing Volkswagen’s behavior at the time as a “egregious violation of Australian consumer law of the worst imaginable kind”. It circumvented the emissions standards in Australia by installing “two-mode software” that released different emissions depending on the vehicle’s operation. Volkswagen admitted it had not disclosed the existence of the software when it applied for approval to import more than 57,000 vehicles into Australia. Hundreds of uses have been added to Australia’s Green Vehicle Guide website to help consumers “choose a cleaner car” by comparing vehicles’ environmental standards primarily on the basis of emissions. But its “defenses” were exposed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, and Volkswagen acknowledged the “moral and political catastrophe” that its “test manipulations” caused. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission welcomed the High Court’s decision as a powerful decision for large companies. “What made it particularly egregious in this case was that if Volkswagen had been telling the truth, these vehicles would not have been legally sold in Australia,” said chairman Rod Sims. “Your behavior showed a total disregard for Australian import regulations for vehicles, which are intended to protect the consumer.” Australian Associated Press

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