VW investors sue car giant for €8.2 bn over Dieselgate

Volkswagen will face claims for 8.2 billion euro over Dieselgate. About 1,400 lawsuits have been lodged at the regional court in Braunschweig near VW’s Wolfsburg headquarters, the court said.

The facts date back to last year, when from United States emerged that the Wolfsburg automaker used a software to make up the data on harmful emissions of its cars. Overall about two billion requests come from institutional investors, while the remaining 6.2 billion come from private investors.

The claims for compensation before the Court of Braunschweig have been growing for months but have accelerated since the beginning of the week. On Monday, 750 new appeals were recorded as institutional investors are concerned that their application is subject to prescription.

"The complete registration of the claims arrived up to now should be finished in four weeks," the court close to VW's Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony headquarters said. 

"Volkswagen continues to believe that we comprehensively fulfilled our obligations under capital markets law and that the claims are unjustified," a spokesman for the carmaker told AFP on Friday.

German law doesn't permit class action. Hovewer,  forecasts for success wouls seem limited. "History has shown that it's very difficult to prove damages of this type in Germany and win a legal case like this," analyst Frank Schwope of Nord/LB bank told AFP.

In the United States, the scandal has already cost 15 billion dollars, but it is not excluded that the pending cases will add another shot coming from the European Commission: EU commissioner for consumer protection, Vera Jourova, explained that "in many member states Volkswagen has clearly broken the law on consumer protection, "and that you may need for action at Community level. Jourova wrote to the national authorities to gather information. "I am working to ensure that European consumers are treated fairly," said the Commissioner.