Volkswagen has agreed to pay Texas $50 million in connection with the German automaker’s admitted peddling of diesel vehicles rigged to surpass emissions limits, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday.
The partial settlement is part of a larger, multibillion-dollar agreement unveiled Tuesday that awards hundreds of millions of dollars to dozens of states and includes a $10 billion buy-back program to compensate consumers who bought the vehicles. Various media reports described it as the largest auto-related class-action settlement in U.S. history.
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Paxton sued Volkswagen Group of America Inc. and parent company Audi of America in October in connection with the automaker’s admitted use of software that allowed its diesel vehicles to circumvent emissions limits. The lawsuits alleged violations of the state’s consumer protection laws and clean air standards. They were among hundreds filed in the United States against VW by governments and consumers.
As part of the settlements announced Tuesday, VW agreed to pay Texas $50 million in civil penalties and attorneys’ fees for its violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which bans false advertising and sale of misrepresented products. About 32,000 diesel cars capable of emissions cheating have been sold in Texas, according to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency figures. That’s compared to about 480,000 nationwide and 11 million globally.
“For years, Volkswagen intentionally misled consumers about the environmental and performance qualities of the vehicles they sold in Texas,” Paxton said in a statement. “When companies willfully violate the public’s trust, we will hold these entities responsible. This settlement will both compensate the victims of Volkswagen’s fraud and punish the company enough to deter future fraud.”
He noted Texas has not yet resolved claims that VW violated state clean air laws, and that Texas continues to pursue related penalties. A Paxton spokeswoman would not say how much those might amount to.
See here for the background on the Texas lawsuit, and here and here for more about the national case. It’s nice to see the AG’s office on the side of a worthwhile case for once, though honestly this was as close to free money as it gets. I mean, the initial suits were filed less than a year ago. VW had basically admitted fault, and they clearly wanted this to go away. Good on them for that, but boy do they still have a lot to atone for.
And they’re not out of legal trouble just yet:
Several local governments in Texas, including Harris County, have also sued VW — over objections from Paxton — but they were not included in the settlements announced Tuesday. The Harris County lawsuit is pending in Travis County district court.
See here and here for the background on that. I presume Paxton didn’t do anything beyond send a letter to the relevant county attorneys asking them to back off; if he did, I couldn’t find any mention of it. It seems likely to me that with the big settlement out of the way, these others will soon follow, but we’ll see.