“Volkswagen Lawsuit Galore in Braunschweig Court” – Investors’ attorneys file lawsuits against VW, figure said to be around 6,000

Attorneys Klaus Nieding and Andreas Tilp are names that are probably going to be memorable to the Braunschweig Court for a very long time. Earlier this month, Nieding and Tilp filed 6,000 lawsuits – 5,000 and 1,000 respectively – on behalf of investors against VW as a result of the emission scandal arising from September 2015.

These are huge numbers, and will no doubt come as yet another headache to the German automotive giants who are seeing law suits coming at them from all over the world.

All 6,000 lawsuits were hand delivered to Lower Saxony, VW’s home state, as it does not offer electronic filing for civil litigation. Once the lawsuits have all been filed, Braunschweig Court will release the total damages requested, which at the moment is a figure standing at around 10.7 billion Euros.

The tribunal at the court will be reviewing all cases, which may take several days, according to Maike Block-Cavallaro. The size of the filing is an example of VW’s continuing nightmare in the car emissions scandal, where the German automakers created the “defeat device” to allegedly cheat emissions testing. In addition to defending lawsuits, the German car manufacturer has been forced to repair the vehicles or remove them from the roads in many countries.

Nieding and Tilp publicised that they will be filing even more lawsuits, which includes a 500 million Euro case against Porsche and VW, as well as a 2.2 billion Euro case against Porsche individually. The argument they have used is that the executives were sitting on both of the companies’ boards, and therefore Porsche should have disclosed the issues when they were aware of it.

Due to the large scale of cases, Braunschweig Court has enlisted four extra clerks, given they are not able to file cases electronically. The electronic filing system is not always seen as the best method of filing in some people’s eyes, with Nieding praising the traditional method of filing, as well as praising the staff at Braunschweig Court saying “…the officer would unlock us the courthouse should our truck arrive after hours…”

The grand scale of these filings would most certainly clog up the fax machines, so hand filing can’t be too bad…

Real compensation for affected vehicle owners

There has been considerable amount of traffic in Brussels. Affected vehicle owners have joined the campaign with European Union Justice Commissioner, Vera Jourova, who met with VW’s Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz on September 21.

The purpose of the meeting was to highlight the campaign for affected vehicle owners to get ‘real’ compensation.

To put it into context, European vehicle owners are entitled to a recall – which means a repair of the vehicle, whereas our American counterparts are getting thousands of dollars in compensation.

Following the meeting, there is yet to be a successful and satisfactory plan of action to compensate these victims. However, according to Bloomberg, VW has pledged to carry out an “EU-wide action plan” which will provide affected vehicle owners with information on repairing the cars. With these unsatisfactory results, I am sure VW will not see the back of legal action made against them. If VW U.S. can provide their victims a satisfactory result, why can the same not be done in Europe?

If you have been affected by any of issues above, please contact our dedicated team of lawyers who will be able to assist you in your claim. Let VW pay for the damage they have caused.

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