Judge, Charles Breyer, signed the settlement between VW and the owners of polluting diesel vehicles. It is one of the biggest settlements ever and the firm is forced to pay very high compensations to their represents and U.S. customers. According to first information, 1,1 billion euros are going to be paid to represents, 13,6 billion euros to customers. In this case every customer will get approximately 9.000 Euros as compensation. More than 10.000 vehicles will be returned and in consequence, the company will have to repair them to be able to put them on the market again. The juridical system of the U.S. is proven to be customer friendly for one more time.
What about customers from other countries, especially from Europe? Unfortunately, within Europe there is no juridical system allowing class-action lawsuits as it is in the U.S. Only Holland provides some similar options. Therefore, ‘Global Justice Network’, an international association of different law firms has founded in Holland the organization ‘CLEAN’. ‘CLEAN’ will fight for all customers. Our law office is also one of the founders and is representing normally, but not only, Swiss customers. Joining us is not bound on any economical expenses or obligations. That is why everyone owning a polluting diesel vehicle is asked to contact us immediately.
A week before the settlement agreement, lawyers from Global Justice Network, among them our represent Constantin Kokkinos, met in Brazil to talk about further steps in Europe. Differences between the European countries have been discussed. This meeting was the second one especially held for the Volkswagen case. The first one took place in San Francisco. American Lawyers, members of Global Justice Network, have done a great job and helped to achieve the U.S. settlement. They will cooperate with their European colleagues and their know-how will be most important.
The American ruling leaves hope that there will be a similar one for European customers even though the VW concern does not want this. Its directing board would prefer to just fixing the vehicles in question without any other further obligations or the right of return. The more customers will apply for compensation through our association the bigger is our chance of being heard by court and gain justice. That is why we are asking our readers for one more time to contact us if they own one of the polluting diesel cars: without any obligations or expenses for themselves.