Before the German Federal Court
Schweizer is right in the diesel scandal
Thousands of diesel buyers outside of Germany can once more hope for damages: the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Monday in a model case involving a Swiss customer that the requirements for a class action lawsuit have been met.
Published: 06/13/2022 at 21:21
The foreign diesel buyers had assigned their claims once morest VW to the online service provider Myright. Unlike the courts in Braunschweig before, the BGH now ruled that Myright meets all the requirements to ultimately collect the claims through class action lawsuits.
The German Financialright GmbH, which stands behind Myright, does not have to prove any special expertise in Swiss law. This means that the content of the individual claims can now be checked.
Myright works once morest a commission in the event of success and advertises that even customers without legal protection insurance do not bear any cost risk. According to VW, several class action lawsuits are pending in German courts for a total of around 36,000 clients. These include two lawsuits for more than 2,000 Swiss and around 6,000 Slovenian customers.
Stefan Zimmermann from Myright has already spoken of a “milestone for consumer protection”. For Switzerland and Slovenia, the business model has definitely been confirmed to the extent that “we can finally discuss with VW how much compensation the customer is actually entitled to”.
VW, on the other hand, announced that in the specific case it was expected that the lawsuit would be dismissed at a later date. “Because according to the Swiss law applicable to the case, the claims made do not exist.” So far, no Swiss court has granted a claim for damages once morest Volkswagen.
But last November, a Geneva court sentenced VW importer Amag to compensation for the first time and awarded compensation to the owner of a VW diesel car in Switzerland for manipulating emissions tests. Amag wanted to continue the verdict.
The Swiss Federal Prosecutor’s Office had announced shortly beforehand that they wanted to end their criminal proceedings once morest Volkswagen and Amag in connection with the diesel scandal. She lacked the basis for an indictment.
During the emissions scandal, millions of diesel vehicles at VW were manipulated in such a way that they had low pollutant emissions in official tests, but were then significantly more polluting in normal use than on the test bench. Around 175,000 car buyers and lessees are said to have been affected by the manipulations in Switzerland.
(SDA)