Court rejects second investor group action against VW and Porsche

A German court on Wednesday stated it won’t permit a second investor group action against Volkswagen and Porsche, for allegedly failing to tell investors about the Diesel scandal in 2015.

Investors have brought multiple cases against both automakers in the southern city of Stuttgart, arguing that the automakers should have issued adhoc-statements previously to inform the market about U.S. officials starting to investigate the emissions cheating.

Stuttgart’s court of appeal stated these cases could not be bundled in a group action against the automakers as a similar lawsuit was already pending in the city of Braunschweig and according to German law, there could only be no more than one such case at a time.

Group actions intend at facilitating legal actions brought by investors against firms as they bundle a huge number of individual cases, permitting investors to team up and save litigation expenses.