VW pays state $8.5M
Attorney General Mike Hunter announced an $8.5 million settlement with Volkswagen.
Attorney General Mike Hunter announced Wednesday that an $8.5 million settlement has been reached between the state, Volkswagen and related auto manufacturers in a case that accused the carmakers of false and deceptive advertising.
Oklahoma filed its lawsuit against the companies after a federal investigation found Volkswagen had deliberately installed software in diesel vehicles that aimed to cheat laboratory emissions tests.
Investigators found the vehicles emitted as much as 40 times the amount of allowable nitrogen oxide under U.S. standards during real-world driving conditions.
Before the scandal was uncovered, the automaker had aggressively marketed the vehicles as environmentally friendly, with fuel efficiency, torque and power capabilities as added advantages.
Hunter said Oklahoma brought the case against Volkswagen to uphold the state’s consumer protection laws.
“VW purposefully misled consumers in one of the most egregious cases of false advertising the automobile industry has ever seen,” Hunter stated in a release announcing the settlement.
“The company’s fraudulent marketing practices deceived thousands of Oklahomans who believed they were buying a vehicle that was good for the environment. Our lawsuit was about holding the company accountable for these practices.”
Officials said the $8.5 million will be used to reinforce the state's consumer protection laws through educational programs designed to help Oklahomans prevent and recover from fraud, mediation of consumer complaints and taking legal action against individuals or businesses that engage in deceptive or fraudulent practices.
This latest settlement is not part of a previous settlement worth about $17.4 billion that Volkswagen Group of America made with the U.S. government to end an investigation into allegations it cheated to meet emissions standards on its diesel vehicles.
From that earlier settlement, Volkswagen Group of America subsidiary Electrify America will spend $2 billion during the next decade to build electric vehicle infrastructure and educational projects, planning to deploy more than 2,000 vehicle chargers across 484 sites on highways in 39 states and in 17 specific metropolitan areas.
Also, that settlement includes a $2.7 billion portion that establishes an environmental mitigation trust states and territories can tap to invest in transportation projects that will reduce nitrogen oxide emissions.
Oklahoma's share of that portion of the earlier settlement is about $22 million, and a plan on how to use those dollars is being developed by Oklahoma's Department of Environmental Quality and other state officials.