Car firms ‘colluded’ to cheat on pollution

DAIMLER, Volkswagen, BMW, Audi and Porsche made a pact to ignore pollution guidelines which led to the “defeat device” scandal, documents found by the EU Competition Commission appear to show.

According to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, the commission discovered papers in which managers of the car companies agreed to a “common approach” in which “the use of a particulate filter should be avoided at all costs”.

Filters should have been fitted to prevent toxic emissions getting into the air, but instead, manufacturers installed specialist devices to prevent accurate testing.

All five companies have since recalled cars after admitting the wrong emissions software was installed.

The agreement may mean that the companies breached competition law. No manufacturers would comment on the documents while the commission investigation was continuing.