Volkswagen shareholders leveled new lawsuits against the German auto giant Thursday over its emissions-cheating scandal that has crossed into several continents.
Total damages sought in Germany alone have climbed to over five billion euros, or $5.6 billion, with the new legal claims filed Thursday.
The two law firms representing the shareholders in Germany said today’s claims sought a total of 2.5 billion euros in damages and interest.
Recent claims by nearly 300 plaintiffs filed last week in a court of Brunswick, Germany asked for 3 billion euros in damages.
The automaker became the center of scandal last year when the U.S. EPA and California air regulators said the automaker employed software that only enables emissions controls on its line of diesel cars when they were being inspected for emissions. At all other times the emission controls were switched off.
The automaker soon admitted that it had purposely sought to dupe environmental regulators. Later, investigations were launched in multiple countries.
Billions more in damages are being sought in the U.S., not counting civil penalties tacked on by federal and state regulators. Millions of vehicles were implicated in the cheating scandal.
