VW CEO explains why European customers have drawn the short straw
BERLIN — The day Volkswagen’s lawyers were in court sealing a historic $15bn settlement to resolve its emissions scandal in the US, CE Matthias Müller went to Brussels to try to defuse a potential flare up with the European Commission over demands that the German car maker also offer generous compensation for nearly 9-million European customers.During the meeting on Thursday with Elzbieta Bienkowska, the EU industry commissioner, Müller made it clear that Volkswagen had no intention of offering equal compensation to Europeans who bought tainted diesel vehicles.He said tougher US emissions standards made it more difficult to fix the cars to make them compliant than in Europe, requiring the hefty payments in the US, but not in Europe."I said this to the commissioner in a personal conversation on Thursday in Brussels," Müller said in comments published on Sunday in Germany’s weekly Welt am Sonntag newspaper.While Müller’s position is based on the differences between US and European law...
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