According to the ECJ, Mercedes must compensate diesel owners for “thermal windows”.

Mercedes at the TÜV

The Federal Court of Justice had previously rejected claims for damages.

(Photo: dpa)

Dusseldorf Mercedes-Benz may have to pay a diesel owner compensation for an illegal defeat device during exhaust gas cleaning. The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by a Mercedes buyer against the car manufacturer that the buyer is entitled to compensation if he suffered damage as a result of the defeat device.

The Ravensburg district court, which was dealing with the complaint of a Mercedes driver, wanted to have this question clarified by the ECJ.

The ECJ is the first supreme court to make a judgment unfavorable to Mercedes-Benz. The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) had previously rejected claims for damages, as it made intent to damage the buyer a prerequisite for this, but could only recognize negligence on the part of the car manufacturer. The Luxembourg judges have now ruled that the car manufacturers can also be held liable if they had simply acted negligently without any intention of fraud.

The judges in Germany must now implement these requirements. In order to await the ECJ ruling, courts of all instances had shelved mass diesel proceedings in which this question was important. At the BGH alone, more than 1900 revisions and complaints about non-admission are pending, the clear majority had been postponed because of the ECJ proceedings.

The “Diesel Senate” of the BGH has already scheduled a hearing for May 8, in which it intends to discuss the “possible consequences for German liability law” in order to provide the lower instances with guidelines as quickly as possible. Because with the ECJ judgment not all questions have been clarified by a long shot. For example, it is unclear how much money affected car buyers are entitled to.

The background to the proceedings was a claim for damages from Germany against Mercedes-Benz because of a so-called thermal window. Thermal windows are part of the engine control system, which throttle exhaust gas cleaning at cooler temperatures. Car manufacturers argue that this is necessary to protect the engine. Environmental organizations, on the other hand, see it as a tool that helps to make car emissions appear smaller under test conditions than they are in real traffic. The ECJ considers these thermal windows to be permissible only within very narrow limits.

Thermal windows were also used as standard by other manufacturers. Since the ECJ ruling relates to unlawful defeat devices in general, it could also be transferrable to other functionalities in the exhaust technology of diesel cars, which are currently being scrutinized by the courts.

More: ECJ declares thermal windows in VW diesel engines inadmissible

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