France is heading towards a fourth lawsuit in the Dieselgate saga. After Volkswagen, Peugeot-Citroën, and Renault, it’s Fiat-Chrysler’s turn to be investigated for fraudulent software in some of their diesel cars. The manufacturer contests “the entire jurisdictional argumentation”.
Fiat-Chrysler is suspected of having commercialised between 2014 and 2017 diesel vehicles of the brands Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Jeep. All were equipped with the Multijet II diesel engine. The investigation has started because “these vehicles have been specially calibrated in function of specific technical parameters such as temperature, speed, gear ratios, etc, to respect the legislative standards on NOx emissions only in homologating test conditions”.
The public prosecutor’s office thinks that “in normal driving conditions not corresponding with those of the legal test, the vehicles were calibrated to have a seriously degraded functionality of their depollution system.”
Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) was created in 2014 when Fiat bought Chrysler. In 2021, FCA and PSA (another suspect in the Dieselgate case) joined to form Stellantis. The lawyer of FCA, Alexis Gublin, declared: “We have heard the prosecutor’s office requisitions and contest the integrality of the jurisdictional argumentation.”
Integral compensation
The lawyers representing the supposedly duped clients have reacted with satisfaction, hoping that the investigation will proceed swiftly. Lawyer Frederik-Karel Canoy, who issued the first complaints as early as 2017, insists that “the compensation of the damage has to be integral and not symbolic.” A total of 38,144 vehicles are involved, representing a total value of €836 million.
Dieselgate started in 2015 in the United States with lawsuits and allegations against Volkswagen. Until now, the fines and compensation have cost the German car manufacturing group already more than €33 billion. Later on, accusations were made against other manufacturers, like Fiat-Chrysler. They managed to negotiate an amicable settlement with the U.S. authorities regarding more than 100,000 vehicles concerned. The agreement resulted in Fiat-Chrysler paying approximately $515 million to various regulatory authorities to settle pending lawsuits.
In France, FCA was accused for the first time by a Parisian investigating judge in July 2021. The final decision on whether a trial will proceed rests with the investigating judge.
