$80m fine and rising

The Australian judge presiding over a Federal Court case between the consumer watchdog and Volkswagen has said he may impose an even bigger fine than the A$75 million (NZ$80m) record amount the two parties agreed to over the “dieselgate” emissions scandal.

VW is facing several other cases around the world over the scandal, and it’s understood it wanted to settle with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission without admitting any fault, because doing so might hurt its overseas cases.

Justice Lindsay Foster was outraged by the compromise. He said Australians would be “very upset” if they knew the ACCC was letting VW, the world’s secondlargest automotive company, get off easy.

He said the agreement between the two parties contained “a bunch of weasel words”, and the ACCC had abandoned large parts of its case against VW in order to secure a deal.

Millions of VW vehicles around the world were programmed with software to help them cheat emissions tests, including around

100,000 in Australia.

The scam started to crash in

2014 when a West Virginia University research centre tasked with demonstrating the benefits of diesel technology instead found VW diesel vehicles gave off more emissions in real-world driving than shown in testing.

The US Environmental Protection Agency threatened to deny certification for new diesel models.

Volkswagen admitted it had cheated on emissions tests in September 2015, causing its stock to fall 20 per cent.

VW was fined €1b in Germany, and US$2.8b in the US.