New Jersey Sues Volkswagen Over Emissions Cheating -- Update
February 05 2016 - 3:30PM
Dow Jones News
By Mike Spector
New Jersey's acting attorney general has sued Volkswagen AG over
an emissions-cheating crisis linked to millions of vehicles, adding
to mounting legal woes for the German car maker.
John Hoffman, the state's acting attorney general, on Friday
alleged Volkswagen violated state environmental and consumer fraud
laws when selling more than 17,000 diesel-powered vehicles with
software capable of duping government emissions tests.
The misconduct "perpetrated a massive fraud upon consumers" and
Volkswagen "profited greatly from its misconduct" in selling the
vehicles, the lawsuit alleges.
Mr. Hoffman sued Volkswagen and the company's Audi and Porsche
luxury brands in state court, seeking financial penalties.
"Our lawsuit alleges that Volkswagen put profit ahead of
honesty, integrity, fair business practices and--most disturbing of
all--the well-being of people living and breathing the air here in
New Jersey and across the country," Mr. Hoffman said in a news
release.
A Volkswagen spokeswoman said the company's top priority remains
figuring out how to fix affected vehicles in cooperation with
regulators.
Volkswagen vehicle emissions in affected automobiles violated
legal pollution limits, the lawsuit says. The lawsuit also alleges
Volkswagen profited from higher prices for diesel-powered vehicles
sold under false promises of being environmentally friendly and
harmed consumers who face declining resale values and potential
performance declines once they have their vehicles fixed.
Mr. Hoffman's civil suit adds to similar legal actions brought
by attorneys general in New Mexico, Texas and West Virginia. In
addition, the U.S. Justice Department in January brought a civil
suit against Volkswagen on behalf of the Environmental Protection
Agency seeking billions of dollars of damages for violating U.S.
clean-air law.
Volkswagen is racing to develop recall plans for nearly 600,000
diesel-powered vehicles across the U.S. that contain illegal defeat
devices allowing automobiles to pollute more on the road than
during laboratory tests. Volkswagen has halted sales of the
affected vehicles in the U.S.
Regulators earlier this year rejected Volkswagen's plan for
nearly 500,000 affected vehicles with two-liter diesel engines sold
in the U.S. since 2008 as inadequate. Regulators are currently
reviewing a plan from Volkswagen for some 80,000 vehicles with
three-liter diesel engines. The problematic software is on nearly
11 million vehicles globally and Volkswagen started recalling
vehicles in Europe in January.
Volkswagen separately on Friday said it planned to delay
releasing 2015 earnings results and postpone its annual
shareholders meeting amid difficulties calculating the financial
fallout from the emissions-cheating crisis.
Volkswagen has set aside more than $7 billion to deal with
fixing tainted vehicles. Volkswagen said it still planned to
publish in the second half of April findings from a report it
commissioned to probe the emissions scandal.
Write to Mike Spector at mike.spector@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 05, 2016 16:15 ET (21:15 GMT)
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