Germany's Federal Supreme Court, the Bundesgerichthof, today found in favour of a VW owner who claimed damages arising from the Dieselgate (or, in German, Dieselfall) scandal. Previously it had seemed that because vehicles were allowed to stay on the road, with the offending software being changed, owners would have suffered no loss and therefore would be unable to claim damages - unlike in the US, where the vehicles were banned. The BGH in its judgment (press release here but still in German) confirms the judgment of lower courts in Bad Kreutznach and Koblenz, which had awarded the purchase price less an allowance for use of the vehicle. Both parties had appealed, the manufacturer against the award and the claimant (rather optimistically, I would have thought) against the allowance for use - so both lost.
The judgment will close some 60,000 cases still outstanding in Germany, and will have an influence on 100,000 cases pending elsewhere including 90,000 in the UK.
More details from Reuters here.
