Compensation for the 15.3 billion U.S. VW "Emission Gate" Settlement Details

On June 28, 2016, Volkswagen officially announced the details of the settlement agreement of the US “Emission Gate”, and the final Volkswagen Group will compensate USD 15.3 billion. However, this compensation is only for vehicles equipped with 2.0TDI, and 3.0TDI engines that involve excessive emissions are negotiated separately.

The Volkswagen Group signed a settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the states, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, and the Plaintiff Steering Committee (PSC) on behalf of the owner of the lawsuit to make civil claims against the Volkswagen brand and the Audi brand in vehicles carrying the 2.0TDI engine in the United States. The US regulators paid a fine of 15.3 billion U.S. dollars for violations of excessive emissions.

This includes:

1. The compensation paid to the owner of the 2.0TDI model, a total of 10.033 billion US dollars;

2. Payment of US$2.7 billion to the Environmental Trust appointed by the Northern California Regional Court of the United States to repair the environmental pollution caused by the nitrogen oxides emitted by its 2.0 litre non-compliant diesel vehicles;

3. To invest 2 billion U.S. dollars in the next 10 years to support the development, use, and awareness promotion of zero-emission vehicle infrastructure;

4. The Volkswagen Group compensated nearly 583 million U.S. dollars to 44 U.S. states and paid US$20 million to the National Association of Public Prosecutors (NAAG).

It is worth mentioning that this settlement agreement requires the public to repurchase or repair at least 85% of the 2.0-liter diesel vehicles by June 30, 2019. If the target is not reached, it will need to compensate the Environmental Trust with another US$85 million. And this agreement does not include the 3.0TDI engine model that involves the “discharge door” incident. The public also needs to formulate another compensation plan.