Volkswagen agrees to pay another $157m

Volkswagen said on Thursday it reached an agreement with the attorneys general of 10 US states to pay $157.45 million to resolve environmental claims related to its cheating of emissions tests in the United States.

The company said the settlement also resolved “certain consumer claims” that were not included in Volkswagen’s prior multi-state agreement.

Volkswagen said the $157.45 million would be allocated among Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

“The agreement avoids further prolonged and costly litigation as Volkswagen continues to work to earn back the trust of its customers, regulators and the public,” said Volkswagen.

In total, Volkswagen has now agreed to spend almost $25 billion in the United States to address a multitude of claims from regulators, owners, states and dealers.

In June, 2016, Volkswagen reached a $603 million agreement with 44 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to resolve state consumer protection claims.

That consumer settlement did not include claims for injunctive relief or restitution related to 3.0L TDI V6 vehicles which were included in Thursday’s settlement.

In January, Volkswagen reached an agreement with the US government to pay a combined penalty of $1.45 billion to resolve federal environmental claims under the Clean Air Act and customs-related civil claims.

As part of its civil settlement agreements, Volkswagen is also establishing a $2.92 billion environmental trust to remediate the total, lifetime excess nitrogen oxide emissions from affected 2.0L TDI and 3.0L TDI V6 vehicles in the United States and invest $2 billion over 10 years in zero emissions vehicle (ZEV) infrastructure, access and awareness initiatives.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said: “Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche tried to pull off an extraordinarily cynical corporate fraud – deceiving hundreds of thousands of consumers, pumping thousands of tons of harmful pollution into our air, and flouting New York and federal environmental laws designed to protect public health.

“This went on for nearly a decade, for no other reason than their bottom line, so the companies could avoid the expense of engineering cars that would actually meet our environmental standards.

“Adding insult to injury, they marketed these dirty vehicles as environmentally-friendly and technologically-advanced – not only deceiving consumers and harming our environment, but also undercutting the sales of their law-abiding competitors …

“But Volkswagen was caught – and today’s settlement means we’ve now held them to full account.”