VW seeks delay in US trial after lawyer references monkey testing, Hitler
The US unit of Volkswagen AG asked a US judge to delay several court trials it is facing over excess emissions because it fears ‘inflammatory’ comments made by a lawyer representing car owners in a recent TV documentary will prejudice the jury.
Although nearly all US owners agreed to take part in a 2016 settlement, the German carmaker is being sued by some consumers after it admitted in September 2015 to cheating on diesel emissions tests, sparking the biggest business crisis in its history, Reuters reported.
The first consumer fraud trial involves a North Carolina man who bought a 2014 diesel Jetta, and is set for Feb. 26.
But according to a legal filing, Volkswagen of America asked a judge in Fairfax County, Virginia to delay that trial for at least six months after a lawyer for more than 300 US VW diesel owners, Michael Melkersen, gave an interview in which he referred to the company testing diesel fumes on monkeys.
This week, Volkswagen in Germany suspended its chief lobbyist in response to reports the carmaker had jointly sponsored tests that exposed monkeys in 2014 to toxic diesel fumes, methods condemned by its chief executive as repulsive.
In the interview for a documentary aired by streaming service Netflix, Melkersen criticized the tests, adding: “One cannot help to think back throughout history of another series of events involving individuals being gassed by a person who was actually at the opening of the very first Volkswagen factory” — an apparent reference to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust.
In its legal filing, VW’S lawyers argued those comments would prevent a fair trial and pointed to another comment Melkersen made in the documentary: “There is a concern, obviously, amongst Volkswagen that if a jury were to ever hear about any of this stuff that could really impact the verdict in this The European Conservative and Reformist group which represents Conservative MEPS has said Brexit will make it ‘impossible’ to guarantee that current environmental standards can be maintained in Britain or the EU.
A leaked document seen by the Guardian also calls for ‘the closest possible working relationship’ between the EU and UK after Brexit, and for a ‘no regression clause’ in future British trade deals, theguardian.com reported.
This would ‘limit any negative effects from deregulation’, said the paper, which was submitted to the European parliament’s Brexit environment steering group.
Some Conservative MEPS claimed not to have seen the report that was submitted. case.”
Volkswagen lawyers said that “pretrial publicity has connected (the company) directly with Hitler and the Holocaust”, which they said was not relevant to a trial about alleged consumer fraud claims.
Melkersen called the VW legal motion ‘hogwash’.
“This is another tactic to postpone their day of reckoning,” Melkersen told Reuters.
VW has agreed to spend more than $25 billion in the US to address claims from owners, environmental regulators, US states and dealers and to make buyback offers. what the report calls ‘a race to the bottom amongst states within a similar geographical area’.
Labour party frontbenchers expressed shock at the document, and called on the government to bring forward proposals to earmark current green regulations as a baseline for future trade deals.
Barry Gardiner, Labour’s shadow secretary for international trade and climate change, said: “It is astonishing to find that Conservative MEPS have confirmed everything that we have been saying during the passage of the trade bill this week about the need to secure our environmental standards and protections.”