Volkswagen faces Germany’s biggest investor lawsuit as attorneys filed complaints totaling 8.2 billion euros ($9.2 billion) related to the diesel emissions scandal that wiped out a third of the company’s market value.
About 1,400 lawsuits are currently pending at a court in Braunschweig, about 20 miles from Volkswagen’s Wolfsburg headquarters, a judicial spokeswoman said Wednesday.
Investors say they lost money on VW shares because the company was slow in disclosing the emissions-cheating issue.
Investors have lined up to sue in Germany, where VW shares plunged in the first two trading days after the Sept. 18 disclosure of the emissions scandal by US regulators.
Monday was the first business day after the anniversary of the scandal and investors had feared they needed to sue within a year of the company’s admission that it had equipped about 11 million diesel vehicles with software to cheat on pollution tests.
The amount is less than the 10.7 billion euros that had been expected based on lawyers’ statements last week, but more suits could still trickle in because of uncertainty about when the deadline expires. The court may need about four weeks to register all the complaints, it said.
