Almost 300 institutional investors in Volkswagen
have filed a multi-billion euro suit against the carmaker for what they see as
breaches of its capital markets duty in the emissions scandal, the law firm
representing them said.
The lawsuit, for damages of 3.256 billion euro
($3.61 billion), was filed at a regional court in Braunschweig in VW's home
state of Lower Saxony on Monday and is being brought by 278 investors from all
over the world, including German insurers and U.S. pension fund Calpers.
Law firm TISAB said the #lawsuit was over whether
VW neglected its duty to the capital markets regarding the timeframe between
June 2008 and Sept. 18, 2015.
A spokesman for VW said the carmaker could not
comment because it had not been sent the suit.
Volkswagen earlier this month published an
account of the events leading to the violation of U.S. emissions law being
publicly announced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The law firm has also filed a motion for a
so-called model claims, a German legal procedure which - for lack of U.S. style
class-action lawsuits - uses court rulings won by individual investors as
templates to set damages for others that are equally affected.
"Due to the fact that – according to our
information and experience - Volkswagen AG persistently denies any settlement
negotiations and also refuses to waive the statute of limitation defense until
now, it was necessary to file this first multi-billion euro lawsuit," lawyer
Andreas Tilp said in a statement.
Tilp in October filed a lawsuit on behalf of
retail investors.
(Reporting
by Jan Schwartz; Writing by Victoria Bryan, editing by David Evans)
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