The day Volkswagen lawyers remained in court sealing a historic $15 billion settlement to solve its emissions scandal in the U.S., CEO Matthias Müller went to Brussels to aim to defuse a possible flare with the European Commission over needs that the German automobile maker also provide charitable payment for almost 9 million European customers.
While attending the conference on Thursday with Elzbieta Bienkowska, the European Union Industry Commissioner, Mr. Müller explained that Volkswagen had no intention of offering equivalent compensation to Europeans who purchased tainted diesel cars. He said tougher U.S. emissions standards made it more hard to fix the cars to make them compliant than in Europe, requiring the significant payments in the United States, but not in Europe.
“I said this to the Commissioner in a personal discussion on Thursday in Brussels,” Mr. Müller stated in remarks released on Sunday in Germany’s weekly Welt am Sonntag newspaper.
While Mr. Müller’s position is based on the distinctions between American and European law, his main issue is that the company would suffer possibly irreparable financial damage were it compelled to supply the exact same level of compensation for its European consumers. In the U.S., nearly 500,000 U.S. customers are impacted, however in Europe there are nearly 9 million.
