The US Federal Trade Commission has filed suit against the US arm of VW for false advertising.
More specifically, FTC accuses Volkswagen of deceiving customers with their ‘Clean Diesel’ advertising campaign into buying more than 550,000 diesel vehicles based on false claims of them being environmentally friendly when they were equipped with hidden defeat devices to pass emissions tests.
“For years Volkswagen’s ads touted the company’s ‘Clean Diesel’ cars even though it now appears Volkswagen rigged the cars with devices designed to defeat emissions tests,” said FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez. “Our lawsuit seeks compensation for the consumers who bought affected cars based on Volkswagen’s deceptive and unfair practices.”
The Federal Trade Commission said in their statement that they are seeking “a court order requiring Volkswagen to compensate American consumers who bought or leased an affected vehicle between late 2008 and late 2015, as well as an injunction to prevent Volkswagen from engaging in this type of conduct again.”
Prior to this, Volkswagen had received more than 500 civil lawsuits in the wake of the emissions scandal by customers, along with some of the U.S. states and the Justice Department back in January, which is seeking up to $46 billion for violation of environmental and emission laws.
US regulators have given Volkswagen an extended deadline on April 21 to present how they plan to fix the affected diesel vehicles, after failing to comply with the original March 24 deadline.