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Bloomberg
Car owners and the U.S. government have an extra week to file settlement proposals in Volkswagen AG’s diesel-cheating case after a federal judge delayed the filing deadline, citing the “highly technical nature†of the negotiations.
Lawyers for the drivers, the U.S Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission now have until noon on June 28 to file their draft settlement agreements, according to a court order on Wednesday issued at the behest of settlement master Robert Mueller. A hearing to approve the plans to get some 480,000 cars off U.S. roads will remain scheduled for July 26, according to the order.
The delay denies Volkswagen the opportunity to present a conclusion to shareholders at their June 22 annual meeting, leaving uncertainty nine months after the German carmaker admitted to rigging the exhaust system in some 11 million diesel cars worldwide. The company is said to have earmarked at least $10 billion to resolve civil claims in the U.S., and it set aside 16.2 billion euros to cover the global costs of the scandal.
The order by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco comes hours before Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Matthias Mueller is set to present the manufacturer’s strategy for the decade ahead. The goals of that plan include leading the company beyond its era of crisis and into one of electric and self-driving cars.
The shares fell 1.2 percent to 118.75 euros at 9:20 a.m. in Frankfurt. Volkswagen’s stock has recovered 38 percent since its crisis low in October.
Volkswagen, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, admitted last year that it had manipulated diesel engines with a “defeat device†so full emissions controls switched on only during pollution tests. A plan to fix the 8.5 million noncompliant cars in Europe was largely approved in December but failed to meet U.S. requirements because of differing standards.
The case is In Re: Volkswagen “Clean Diesel†Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2672, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).