KARLSRUHE (dpa-AFX) – Thousands of foreign diesel buyers who have assigned their claims against VW (Volkswagen (VW) vz) to the online service provider Myright can hope for compensation again. Unlike the courts in Braunschweig before it, the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) ruled on Monday in a model case involving a Swiss customer that Myright met all the requirements to ultimately collect the claims through class action lawsuits. The German Financialright GmbH, which stands behind Myright, does not have to prove any special expertise in Swiss law. This means that the content of the individual claims can now be checked. (Az. VIa ZR 418/21)
In a second diesel case from Baden-Württemberg, the judges in Karlsruhe also commented on so-called residual damages for imported cars. (Az. VIa ZR 680/21)
Myright works against a commission in the event of success and advertises that even customers without legal protection insurance do not bear any cost risk. According to VW, several class action lawsuits for a total of around 36,000 clients are pending in German courts. These include two lawsuits for more than 2,000 Swiss and around 6,000 Slovenian customers.
In the hearing at noon, the presiding judge, Eva Menges, surprisingly also commented on other formal hurdles that class action lawsuits by German victims had previously failed in court. She had indicated that her Senate sees no problems with Myright on these points either. However, this aspect was no longer discussed during the brief pronouncement of the verdict. It remains to be seen if he will appear in the full written verdict, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Stefan Zimmermann from Myright has already spoken of a “milestone for consumer protection”. For Switzerland and Slovenia, the business model has in any case been confirmed to the extent “that we can finally discuss with VW how much compensation the customer is actually entitled to.” As far as German customers are concerned, everything now depends on the exact wording of the judgment.
VW, on the other hand, announced that in the specific case they were expecting a “dismissal of the lawsuit at a later date”. “Because according to the Swiss law applicable to the case, the claims made do not exist.” So far, no Swiss court has granted a claim for damages against Volkswagen (Volkswagen (VW) vz).
The class action lawsuits are not to be confused with the already concluded model declaratory action lawsuit brought against Volkswagen by consumer advice centers. This process ended with a settlement that benefited over 245,000 diesel owners. Tens of thousands of individual plaintiffs also received damages from VW. They had all bought a diesel with the scandalous EA189 engine, which had been manipulated in such a way that emission limits were only met in official tests.
Residual compensation may be due to those affected who have not sued for compensation in good time. According to the first BGH rulings, however, the prerequisites for this are only given for new cars, not for cars bought used. This time it was about a car imported from another EU country with zero kilometers on the clock. Such cars are often cheaper because they were not produced for the German market.
Here the highest civil judges decided that residual damages can be considered. The prerequisite, however, is that neither the dealer in Germany nor the intermediary abroad bought the car from VW at their own expense and risk independently of the order. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court had not examined this in the specific case. This must now be done./sem/DP/nas
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