Frequently Asked Questions
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CLEAN Foundation is a foundation set up in the Netherlands. CLEAN stands for Consumers Lead Emissions Accountability Network. CLEAN Foundation represents individuals and companies who either own or lease cars, and also municipalities that are concerned about their toxic air pollution caused by the Volkswagen cars with the emissions defeat devices. We are aiming for a global, worldwide, settlement on behalf of all consumers affected. In that way, we are representing the people who sign up with us as participants.
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There is no European Volkswagen class action per se. Some countries in Europe do permit some form of class action lawsuit, but there are generally some restrictions with some of the countries that even do permit group action, or class action, lawsuits. None of them are like what we have in the United States, where everybody is automatically covered unless they opt out.
In the Netherlands, though, there are several possibilities for filing group actions. Those are the types of things that the CLEAN foundation is interested in, and is looking into, and will pursue. Anybody who has a Volkswagen diesel care that has been affected by the defeat device software is able to join the group action in the Netherlands, except for those who are in the United States because they’re automatically covered by the multi-district-litigation that’s going on in the United States.
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If you have a car that is a Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda, or Porsche that’s affected by the defeat device scandal, you should sign up with the CLEAN Foundation, first of all because the CLEAN Foundation will represent your interests in court, and, secondly, because the more people who sign up, the more pressure we can exert on Volkswagen to actually take responsibility for what they have done. The more people who sign up, the better. The more countries where people live who sign up, the better. We need to send a message to Volkswagen loud and clear that consumers everywhere are entitled to compensation. Our first goal would be to enter into a world-wide settlement with Volkswagen. That would therefore compensate people who are affected everywhere. It would also provide Volkswagen global peace, because it would then be an opt-out settlement that would be applicable everywhere. If we’re unable to do that, then we will take legal action against Volkswagen in The Netherlands.
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No. It doesn’t cost anything to sign up with the Clean Foundation, not initially and not in the end. If we’re able to obtain compensation for you, then you do not need to pay the Clean Foundation anything. We will seek recovery of our costs and legal fees from Volkswagen, but even if we’re unsuccessful in doing that, we will not charge the people who sign up with us anything.
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If your car has been made by Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda or Porsche and it is a diesel and manufactured between the years 2009 and 2015, then there is a chance that your car is affected by the Volkswagen cheating scandal.
The best way to find out whether your car is really affected is to look up your car’s VIN number, which stands for Vehicle Identification Number, and go to one of the websites. For example, if your car is an Audi, go to the Audi website, insert your VIN number and then you will be able to determine whether your car is affected or not. To find your VIN, it’s always on your car registration or your ownership information that you received when you bought the car. Often, you can find it in your windshield, or your windscreen, in the lower left corner.
If you are still unsure and you would like some help, you’re welcome to contact us through our website, CleanVW.org and we will be happy to find out for you whether or not your car is affected by the Volkswagen cheating scandal.
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There are eleven million cars throughout the world that are affected by the Volkswagen defeat device software. 8.5 million of them are in Europe, so that’s the vast majority of the cars that are in Europe. Amongst the European countries, the county with the highest number of cars that are affected is Germany where there are between 2.4 and 2.8 million cars; I’ve seen different data. England, or the United Kingdom, and France follow behind that. In the United States, there are five hundred and eighty thousand cars, and if you think about it, that’s relatively few compared to the rest of the world. However, the only place that Volkswagen has agreed to a settlement is the United States, which, quite frankly, just simply does not make too much sense from a compensation standpoint where most of their customers are located outside the United States.
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Volkswagen intentionally installed software into the cars so that when the cars were being tested, they met the emissions regulations. When the cars were driven on the road, though, the emissions are much higher, up to 40 times higher than they would be in the testing setting.
The defeat device problem originated in 2005 because Volkswagen was intent upon selling their cars in the United States, where there are really strict emissions regulations. In order to be able to get authorization to sell the diesel cars in the United States, the defeat device was intentionally installed in the cars.
The problem became public in September 2015, leading to a big uproar when people recognized and realized what Volkswagen had done. That is the Volkswagen defeat device scandal.
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Volkswagen is being held accountable by action being taken against it in various parts of the world. Let’s start with the United States. In the United States, Volkswagen has agreed to a $14.7 billion settlement which is going to paying the customers that are the victims of the defeat device fraud. Additionally, there is a $2.7 billion part of the settlement which is going for environmental remediation, or fixing the air pollution that Volkswagen caused with these cars. Additionally, there’s a $2.0 billion commitment from Volkswagen that will be invested in Zero Emission Technology for vehicles.
In the rest of the parts of the world, there are steps being taken against Volkswagen. The European Commission has taken the stance that Volkswagen should be compensating its customers in Europe, and that European customers shouldn’t be treated any differently from American customers. The European Parliament’s EMIS committee is investigating the entire vehicle emission problem. In Italy, the anti-trust authority has fined Volkswagen €5 billion, which is the highest possible fine. That is for violation of competition laws, as well as environmental laws.
At this time, we are seeing consumers throughout the world really taking steps to hold Volkswagen accountable. The international and European consumer organizations are really encouraging everyone to become involved. We think that that is the right step, because that is the only way that Volkswagen will get the message that they have to be accountable for what they have intentionally done over decades, or for over a decade, and really, fairly, compensate all of the people throughout the world who are affected by the Volkswagen diesel scandal.
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The Volkswagen Group consists of quite a few different manufacturers with different names, but they all come under the umbrella of the Volkswagen Group. That includes Volkswagen, Skoda, Seat, Audi and Porsche. All of those cars, the diesel cars, are involved in the defeat device scandal.
There’s another company that’s under investigation for being involved in the Volkswagen defeat device scandal and that’s Bosch GmbH, which is German company, because they’re the ones that actually manufactured the software. To what extent or to what degree they knew that Volkswagen was using this software in all of their cars is a question that will probably be answered soon but is not yet definitively answered at this point in time.
There is also, in Europe, another question that has been investigated with regard to emissions involving other manufacturers using thermal windows. In other words, they are trying to maximize whatever loopholes exist in the European regulations for defeat devices, but that is not the same thing as what Volkswagen has done, which is an intentional installation of software in order to circumvent the law.
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In the Netherlands, foundations may act on behalf of a group of people who have similar claims. There are 2 types of collective redress, or class actions, that come into consideration under Dutch law. The first is the 2005 Mass Settlement Act which is abbreviated WCAM. That is a pretty unique act. What it does is if parties are able to reach a settlement out of court, they may apply to the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam, and if the court approves it, it essentially transfers that settlement into a court order that then applies to everyone in the world unless they opt out. It is a mechanism for essentially converting a settlement into an opt-out court ordered settlement that applies to everyone.
On the other hand, if a case is not settled out of court, there is another possibility through the Dutch law using the Dutch Civil Code. In that way, it’s a different type of a situation so that everybody isn’t automatically covered, but rather people can join in, they opt into the litigation. In that type of litigation, you can apply to the court for a declaratory judgment or for injunctive relief.
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How long the class action lawsuit will take in the Netherlands will really depend entirely upon whether or not Volkswagen decides to cooperate. If you look at the United States, the class action settlement in the United States was achieved in a very short period of time due to pressure from the judge, the government, the attorneys, Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, et cetera, et cetera. There were a lot of entities that came together to really cause Volkswagen to make the decision to settle the case.
However, in Europe, or in the rest of the world, it is not exactly the same. Volkswagen has been taking a position that they really don’t have to do anything except to repair the cars, and has been unwilling to enter into settlement negotiations.
If Volkswagen should change that position, we will be able to achieve a settlement and get everybody paid and compensated for all of the damage and the loss in a short period of time. If, however, Volkswagen continues to refuse to cooperate, then we will have to go through court proceedings and those will, then, obviously, take some time longer. It is hard to really estimate exactly how long it will take.
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Unfortunately, we don’t know yet how much money any claimant can expect to receive. What we do know is that in the United States class action settlement, the payments that are going to be made to each individual car owner, or lessee, will range between $5,100 to $10,000 per car.
In Europe and the rest of the world, we’re really not sure whether or not we will be able to achieve the same level of compensation, although we believe that international customers should be treated the same as American customers. There are some arguments that perhaps the amount people receive shouldn’t be quite so high, because this will be very hard for the company to sustain. It does remain to be seen what the amount of compensation will be in the end.
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We really do not understand why Volkswagen did not give the $1,000 goodwill package to all of its customers. If you think about it, Volkswagen’s customer base is really predominantly European. They’ve made their tremendous growth over the years from their European customer base and also from customers throughout the world. For Volkswagen to have sent this goodwill package in December 2015, which I think was a good idea for them to do, but to have sent that only to the American and Canadian customers sends a message to their customers in the rest of the world that perhaps they really don’t care about them. So, I honestly don’t understand why they didn’t send this compensation package to everyone. That, by the way, is not to be deducted from what the Americans are receiving as compensation. The $5,100 to $10,000 that each American car owner will receive is in addition to the $1,000 that they already received back in December 2015.
Answer:
If your car has been made by Volkswagen, Audi, SEAT, Skoda or Porsche and it is a diesel and manufactured between the years 2009 and 2015, then there is a chance that your car is affected by the Volkswagen cheating scandal.
The best way to find out whether your car is really affected is to look up your car’s VIN number, which stands for Vehicle Identification Number, and go to one of the websites. For example, if your car is an Audi, go to the Audi website, insert your VIN number and then you will be able to determine whether your car is affected or not. To find your VIN, it’s always on your car registration or your ownership information that you received when you bought the car. Often, you can find it in your windshield, or your windscreen, in the lower left corner.
If you are still unsure and you would like some help, you’re welcome to contact us through our website, CleanVW.org and we will be happy to find out for you whether or not your car is affected by the Volkswagen cheating scandal.
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In some countries, it’s mandatory to have your car repaired as proposed by Volkswagen. For example, in Germany, it is mandatory that you have your car repaired. If you don’t, probably when you go to have your car inspected, and have the registration renewed you will run into difficulties.
What we don’t do, is we don’t recommend that people rush off and have your car repaired before you check on a couple of things with Volkswagen. We recommend, first of all, that you have Volkswagen give you an assurance that you will not have a higher diesel consumption, in other words you won’t have to pay more when you fill up your car with diesel after the car has been repaired. Secondly, have Volkswagen give you an assurance that your car will not be decreased in power. Thirdly, also make sure that you are getting an extended warranty from Volkswagen for your emissions control system, because it’s being changed now. Then, after the repair, you want to make sure that you are protected in case things go wrong in the future.
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Nobody really knows whether the problem will be entirely fixed after a car has been recalled and repaired. The problem is that Volkswagen has not been forthcoming in giving out data, about what exactly they’re doing, first of all, with regard to the repair, exactly what measures are being taken.
They also haven’t been forthcoming with regard to giving out results of testing that prove what is going to happen to the car after it has been repaired. At this point in time, we have no assurance that there will not be an increase in consumption, meaning you’ll need to buy more diesel fuel to go the same distance you did before your car was repaired. We also don’t know whether or not there is going to be any long-term maintenance problem for the car, simply because nobody can check that. The repairs are really relatively new; there is no long-term data on that. Therefore, I think that, really, nobody can tell what is going to happen to your car.
The other thing, that we really don’t know, is whether or not once the cars have been fixed, whether they will really be fixed from an emissions standpoint. In other words, they might be compliant with the law, in other words when the car is tested in a laboratory setting and it’s not being moved, I think there is a good chance that the cars will meet the emissions standards. But when you’re out driving your car on the road, what will the car be emitting? What is the impact on the environment? These are questions that we really don’t know, and haven’t been answered by Volkswagen either.
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Well, in the United States car owners will have the opportunity to either turn their car back into Volkswagen or have their car repaired, assuming a repair is approved by the EPA or the Environmental Protection Agency. Customers in the rest of the world, in other words internationally including Europe, do not have that choice right now.
At this point in time, the only thing that Volkswagen is offering to its international customers, non-US customers, is to have the car repaired. Now, if you think about it, the whole scandal became public in September 2015. Of course, Volkswagen knew about it long before that, for about a decade before that. Volkswagen has announced that they will try to have all the cars repaired by the end of 2017. That means that there will be cars that will have been on the road for over two years by the time they are repaired. This is actually quite a long process.
The question is of when you will receive the money is entirely open. We are doing our best, the CLEAN Foundation, to make sure that customers everywhere in the world receive compensation from Volkswagen, but how much money that will be, and when we will be able to achieve that, are open questions at this point in time.
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Money received from a possible settlement may be subject to taxes, but the answer is going to depend country to country, and jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and also some individual factors may come into play. Whether an individual received the settlement money or whether the money was paid to a company, so we’re unable to give a blanket answer right now about taxation, but we’ll be happy to help if we get to that point in time where somebody does have a specific question. Through the Clean Foundation and Global Justice Network, we should be able to put you in contact with an attorney who will be able to give you an answer to that question.
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Yes, defeat devices are illegal in all countries. In Europe, defeat devices are not allowed. There is an exception, though, that allows defeat devices to be used if it’s required for the safety of the car, or for the protection of the engine, but that is not why defeat devices were used by Volkswagen. They were used really just to be able to meet the emission standards in the United States and in Europe. So, yes, defeat devices are illegal in all countries.
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Unfortunately, if you bought your car any place else other than the United States, you may not join the class action lawsuit pending in the United States. The United States Court, specifically Judge Breyer, who is the presiding judge in the multi-district litigation, has ordered that the U.S. settlement applies only to cars that were either bought or leased in the United States.
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There are a couple of things that make the CLEAN Foundation different from other foundations. First, we are acting on behalf of all consumers in the world, not just those who are based in Europe. Secondly, we were set up and funded by Global Justice Network and by Corpocon Legal BV, which is a claims company in the Netherlands. Because we’re funded by different lawyers in different parts of the world, we really do have an international aspect to us. If you look at other foundations, you will see that many of them are funded by one lawyer or one law firm, often a US law firm, or by a claims company. Some are funded by claims funders, these are companies that make their money by taking a cut out of compensation that is paid to claimants. We are different; we are funded by different lawyers in different countries who are basically voluntarily contributing to the funding of the CLEAN Foundation.
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Global Justice Network is a network of lawyers who represent claimants or consumers or plaintiffs throughout the world, and we work on different types of cases including anti-trust, financial claims, mass litigation, products liability, airline disasters, maritime disasters, and a lot of consumer cases, which is why the Global Justice Network attorneys are involved in the Volkswagen litigation.
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No, you may not sign up for more than one foundation. You may be represented by only one foundation at a time. What you can do however, if you would like, is you may decide to switch from one foundation to another, that’s possible, but you may only be represented by one foundation at a time.
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Emissions from diesel vehicles have a really bad effect on the environment. More than 400,000 people die in Europe a year from the effect of emissions from vehicles alone. 72,000 of them die as a result of increased levels of NO2, which is nitrogen dioxide. When nitrogen and oxygen burn together in the combustion process with diesel cars, the byproducts are really bad for the environment. They cause smog, they cause environmental harm, and they also cause damage to human health. I think often those things are not really fully appreciated or taken into consideration, but the environmental damage is bad.