The Dieselgate: A Legal Perspective

224 Pages·2017·2.28 MB·English

by  Marco Frigessi di Rattalma (eds.)

Marco Frigessi di Rattalma Editor
The
Dieselgate
A Legal Perspective
The Dieselgate
Marco Frigessi di Rattalma
Editor
The Dieselgate
A Legal Perspective
With contributions by:
MarcoFrigessidiRattalma;SaraLandini;JosephAllanMacDougald;
Marisa Marraffino;AdolfoPaolini;GiorgioPedrazzi;GabriellaPerotti;
GiovanniPosio;LaurentPosocco;FrancescaRomaninJacur;
ChristophU.Schmid;StephenTurner
Editor
MarcoFrigessidiRattalma
DepartmentofLaw
UniversityofBrescia
Brescia,Italy
ISBN978-3-319-48322-1 ISBN978-3-319-48323-8 (eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-319-48323-8
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016963065
©SpringerInternationalPublishingAG2017
Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations,
recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission
or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or
dissimilarmethodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexempt
fromtherelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse.
Thepublisher,theauthorsandtheeditorsaresafetoassumethattheadviceandinformationinthis
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained
hereinor for anyerrors oromissionsthat may havebeenmade. Thepublisher remainsneutralwith
regardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations.
Printedonacid-freepaper
ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature
TheregisteredcompanyisSpringerInternationalPublishingAG
Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:Gewerbestrasse11,6330Cham,Switzerland
Contents
PartI NationalPerspectives
France. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
LaurentPosocco
Germany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ChristophU.Schmid
Italy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
GiovanniPosio
UnitedKingdom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
StephenTurner
UnitedStatesofAmerica. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
JosephAllanMacDougald
PartII SpecificIssues
CivilandConsumerLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
GiorgioPedrazzi
CorporateandInsuranceLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
AdolfoPaolini
CriminalLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
MarisaMarraffino
EnvironmentalLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
SaraLandini
v
vi Contents
TheEnvironmentalDimensionoftheDieselgate:aEuropeanand
InternationalLegalPerspective. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
FrancescaRomaninJacur
EuropeanUnionLaw. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
MarcoFrigessidiRattalmaandGabriellaPerotti
List of Editor and Authors
MarcoFrigessidiRattalma UniversityofBrescia,Brescia,Italy
SaraLandini UniversityofFlorence,Florence,Italy
JosephAllanMacDougald CenterforEnergy&EnvironmentalLaw,University
ofConnecticutSchoolofLaw,Hartford,CT,USA
MarisaMarraffino LawFirmMarraffino,Milan,Italy
AdolfoPaolini UniversityofBuckingham,Buckingham,UK
DACBeachcroftLLP,London,UK
Civil Liability Working Party, International Insurance Law Association AIDA,
London,UK
GiorgioPedrazzi UniversityofBrescia,Brescia,Italy
GabriellaPerotti UniversityofBrescia,Brescia,Italy
GiovanniPosio UniversityofBrescia,Brescia,Italy
Laurent Posocco Maˆıtre de Confe´rences en Droit Prive´ (cid:1)a l’Universite´ de Corse
PascalPaoli,Corte,France
FrancescaRomaninJacur UniversityofMilan,Milan,Italy
ChristophU.Schmid UniversityofBremen,Bremen,Germany
StephenTurner DACBeachcroftLLP,London,UK
vii
Introduction
On18September2015,theUnitedStatesEnvironmentalProtectionAgency(EPA)
issued a notice of violation of the Clean Air Act to German car producer
Volkswagen Group. The notice was based on the allegation that the car producer
hadintentionallyprogrammedturbochargeddirectinjection(TDI)dieselenginesto
activate certain emission control systems only during laboratory testing. This
manipulation had the obvious aim of bypassing the diesel emission standards in
theUSsoastogettheVWdieselcarsapprovedfortheUSmarket.
Not only the USA with 480,000 vehicles but also Germany with 2.2 million
vehicles and many other European countries are affected. VW has admitted that
about11millioncarsworldwide,includingeightmillioninEurope,arefittedwith
theso-calleddefeatdevice.VWevensoldvehicleswiththequestionablesoftware
in China. Several public prosecutors and environmental protection agencies
announce investigations or start investigating. In Germany, the Braunschweig
prosecutorandtheStateofficeofcriminalinvestigationsstartsearchingtheoffices
ofVolkswageninWolfsburgandother(German)cities.
What started in the US has spread to a growing number of countries. The UK,
Italy,France,and,ofcourse,Germany,haveopenedinvestigations.Throughoutthe
world, politicians, regulators, and environmental groups are questioning the legit-
imacy of VW’s emission testing. In France and China, the authorities start inves-
tigating the scandal and the US Justice Department announces that it will sue
Volkswagen over the emission scandal. Meanwhile, the VW Group has already
made a loss of 3.5 billion euros in the third quarter. Workers employed at the
Wolfsburgmanufacturingplantandatotherplantshavetofearfortheirjobs.
Thus,theDieselgatecanforsurebedefinedasaglobalorworldwidescandal.
Thisbookaimstoanalyzethecomplexlegalissuesthatarisefromthefactsthat
make up the magmatic and not yet fully defined reality that goes by the name of
Dieselgate.Thebookismeanttorepresentamomentofreflectiononsomethingso
unprecedentedastheDieselgate.Theauthorsandmyselfhavedecidedtoworkhard
togivereadersinterestedinexploringthelegalissuesrelatedtoDieselgateatimely
referencepoint.
ix
x Introduction
Thestructureofthebookisquitesimple.
Afirstgroupofessaysisdevotedtothemaincountriesinvolvedbythescandal.
These essays shall give a full picture of the main legal consequences and issues
triggered by the scandal. They will thus deal with private and consumer law,
criminal law, environmental law, etc. to the extent that they are necessary for
explainingtheimplicationforeachspecificjurisdiction.
AsecondgroupofessaysinvestigatestheDieselgateeachfromaspecificlegal
perspective: civil and consumer law, corporate and insurance law, criminal law,
environmentallaw,andEuropeanUnionlaw.Thesecontributionsarethuscentered
onspecificareasofthelawandadoptacomparativelawapproach.
In sum, this particular structure of the book shall be apt to give to the reader a
quitecompletepictureofthelegaldimensionoftheDieselgate.
Lastbutnotleast,IwouldliketothankDr.MartaLazzaroni,PhDStudentand
Lecturer of EU law at the University of Brescia, who patiently helped me in the
preparationofthisbookfromstarttofinish.
Milan,Italy MarcoFrigessidiRattalma
January2017
Part I
National Perspectives