Swiss customer protection company SKS has filed a claim on behalf of some 6,000 vehicle owners seeking damages from Volkswagen and Swiss vehicle dealer AMAG associated to the “Dieselgate” emissions scandal.
The claim has been filed with the Zurich commercial court.
SKS stated it was presuming damages amounted usually to 15 percent of the initial retail price of the vehicles associated which, together with insurance companies supporting the legal action, it wished to offer Swiss-based car owners the possibility to impose their rights without disproportionate financial threat.
“The cars sold as environmentally were overpriced from the start. Because of the manipulation of the exhaust system, they then lost much more of their worth on the secondary market,” SKS (Stiftung fuer Konsumentenschutz) stated on Friday.
Volkswagen stated it would analyze the details of the claim once it had them however stated it saw no fundamental case as market experts had not been able to establish any substantial loss of value for the automaker’s diesel vehicles on the Swiss market.
“The trust and satisfaction of our customers are extremely important to us. However, we are of the opinion that there are no legal premises for claims associated with the diesel problem,” it stated.
Volkswagen stated 98 percent of the 173,000 affected vehicles in Switzerland had already been refitted at no charge to owners.
AMAG, which imports the vehicles into Switzerland, stated on its website it did not comprehend why SKS filed the claim since prices on the secondary market for Volkswagen diesel vehicles were at least on the very same level or perhaps higher than those of contending models.