BlackRock Inc. the world’s largest cash manager, is joining an increasing list of financiers lining up to take legal action against Volkswagen AG nearly a year after the German automaker’s dieselgate scandal.
“On behalf of their investors, a number of BlackRock-managed collective investment schemes are pursuing, alongside other institutional investors, legal action against Volkswagen,” BlackRock stated Thursday in an e-mailed statement.
According to the statement, the move is in connection with Volkswagen’s failure to reveal to financiers its usage of ‘defeat devices’ that controlled emission tests, declining to elaborate further due to the continuous legal procedures.
Volkswagen has been durable against the unmatched hit from the crisis, but several new shareholder suits are contributing to risks for more monetary damage. BlackRock is the world’s biggest wealth manager and also the second-largest holder of Volkswagen’s preferred stock with a 3.35 percent stake after Qatar Holdings LLC, as per Bloomberg data. Volkswagen’s preference shares do not bring ballot rights.
Volkswagen says it notified the marketplaces at each stage of the procedure. Volkswagen always complied with capital-market guidelines and the insurance claims are unproven, company spokesman Eric Felber stated in an e-mailed declaration.
Shareholders were hard hit as Volkswagen’s stock rate lowered 35 percent in the two trading days after U.S. regulators disclosed the software application that spotted when a car was on a test stand and minimized harmful emissions to permit the car to pass inspections.
