Volkswagen ordered to pay $196.5M fine for cheating with emissions
TORONTO Volkswagen AG will pay a $196.5-million fine, the largest in Canadian history for an environmental offence, for importing thousands of vehicles rigged to cheat emissions standards and for subsequently lying about it to regulators.
The federal government charged the German automaker with 60 counts related to importing 128,000 VW and Audi vehicles and 2,000 Porsche vehicles into Canada between 2008 and 2015. Volkswagen pleaded guilty on all charges.
Justice Enzo Rondinelli found Volkswagen guilty on all charges and sentenced the company to pay the fine in the Ontario Court of Justice on Wednesday.
“A new era of environmental protection is upon us,” Rondinelli said in his reasoning, noting that Canada increased the penalties for environmental offences in 2012.
“It’s no longer a matter of companies paying minimal fines and seeing it as a cost of doing business,” he said, adding that Volkswagen’s experience has put companies around the world on notice.
Volkswagen agreed to pay the fine within 30 days.
The Crown and Volkswagen jointly proposed the punishment for the automaker after several months of “hard, and I mean hard” negotiations, Crown prosecutor Tom Lemon told the court.
“They caused a risk of damage to the environment. They caused a risk of harm to human health,” Lemon said, although the joint proposal did not include an admission of actual harm.
Volkswagen agreed to pay $188.5 million for 58 counts of importing the vehicles (about $1,450 per vehicle) and $8 million for two counts of misleading the government.
The parties requested the fine be paid to the federal Environmental Damages Fund and be distributed to projects that combat emissions across the provinces, allocated based on how many vehicles each region received.
The maximum fine for all 60 charges under Canadian law is $265 million. But the Crown agreed on mitigating factors including VW’S guilty plea, which avoided a lengthy and costly trial.
Lemon stressed that the fine “reflects the gravity of the conduct and is consistent with applicable Canadian sentencing principles.”
But environmental groups Ecojustice and Environmental Defence argued the fine should be consistent with the scale of the crime and fines paid in other countries. Volkswagen has paid billions in other jurisdictions such as the United States, where payments reached about $15 billion including class action lawsuits.