Volkswagen AG is being sued for 3.3 billion euros (US$3.7 billion) over the cover-up of its polluting diesel engines, its biggest legal challenge in Germany after a wave of lawsuits in the US centered on the scandal.
The action was filed on Monday at the Braunschweig Regional Court on behalf of 278 institutional investors from around the world, lawyer Andreas Tilp said by telephone.
The suit claims Volkswagen failed to publish information about the emissions scandal in a timely manner, he said.
As “Volkswagen persistently denies any settlement negotiations and also refuses to waive the statute-of-limitation defense until now, it was necessary to file this,” Tilp said.
The case comes almost six months after Volkswagen admitted it installed software in its diesel vehicles to cheat emissions testing, a scandal that has rippled through the global car industry. So far, 65 cases are pending in Braunschweig over the issue, the court said last week.
The company also faces a multitude of lawsuits in the US as well as criminal probes in various countries.
“We don’t know the suit yet and can’t comment further,” Volkswagen spokesman Eric Felber said.
Tilp has represented investors in many German cases over capital-market disclosure issues. His firm represents institutional investors suing Porsche SE for a combined 2.6 billion euros.
Volkswagen stock fell as much as 2.2 percent to 113 euros in Frankfurt trading and was down 1.2 percent at 10am yesterday.
Among the plaintiffs in the new Volkswagen case are investors from Taiwan, Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.
These groups include 17 German investment management companies, as well as insurance companies and the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, one of the largest pension funds in the US, Tilp said.
The lawsuit is being financed by Claims Funding Europe, DRRT, Grant & Eisenhofer and Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP. Another 20 institutional investors with damage claims of more than 1 billion euros are in talks with the firm about an additional suit, Tilp said.
Tilp filed the first individual shareholder case against Volkswagen on Oct. 1. The lawyer has asked the court to open test-case proceedings.
If the request is granted, all capital-market cases will be jointly heard in a special procedure before the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court in the German state of Lower Saxony.
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