Volkswagen loses battle over $125M fine in High Court
The world's most inhuman and anti-environmental carmaker has just emerged from the High Court of Australia with a $125 million bill, again.
2021 hasn't been such a bad year after all.
Back in 2016, you might recall, shortly after Dieselgate, up next: Lenny Kravits, the ACCC woke up to prepare the lawsuit for Volkswagen and Audi for lying to the Federal Government, and you. Specifically for breaching section 29(1)(a) of Australian Consumer Law, which essentially says: ‘Don’t act dishonest’.
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But they did, electing to poison people and pollute the environment in order to maximise their profit, which is quite poor, on the spectrum of inhuman and anti-environmental corporate conduct. But they are high achievers, so VW breached that section of the legislation, not once, but on 473 separate occasions, in respect of just over 57,000 vehicles. Well done. Might as well do it ‘big’.
Volkswagen initially defended these proceedings, because they are egotistical corporate suits, but when it started looking like losing was imminent, they had a quick, semi-private favour under the table with the ACCC where they bilaterally and jointly decided the softest landing here was a $75 million fine, and no more lawyers at dawn, in court.
So they skipped back into Federal Court holding hands, metaphorically, quite pleased with themselves, and told Judge Foster they’d been very productively cooperative, promising to be good boys and girls from now on, for ever and ever.
Judge Foster’s nostrils flared, metaphorically, when they told him they thought $75 million would just about do the trick. And when Foster finally calmed down, the first thing he said was words to the effect of, “Screw that. I’m gonna make it $125 million.”
Senior executive suits at Volkswagen, and their lawyers (no reference to individuals is made; only to the company itself) decided to appeal Forster’s decision, on seven different grounds, but mainly they just thought they could have a tantrum about it being “manifestly excessive”.
This is a really common inversion of reality done by politicians, murderers, the corrupt - being the bad guy, and yet making yourself look like the victim. It happens all the time. Gladys Berejiklian did it (victim of ICAC), John Barilaro (victim of YouTube comedian Jordan Shanks >>).
Anyway, the High Court metaphorically laughed Volkswagen AG out of court recently (Nov 12, 2021) by denying those anti-consumer suits leave to appeal the $125 million decision.
There’s no higher appeal possible, so the $125 million penalty is a done deal. Volkswagen will have to pay it. Hopefully, it will shine like a beacon to other would-be anti-consumer corporate entities.
Rod Sims there, the glace cherry on the icing of the cake that is the normally somnambulant ACCC.
Some important developments have stemmed from this decision. Let’s talk about what this means for you…
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Volkswagen penalty sets a new precedent
A couple of interesting things flow from this verdict.
Firstly, if you care about important issues like this, which affect everybody, I encourage you to have a read of the reports on this in - A) the mainstream media, and B) the mainstream motoring media.
They have to report this, inconveniently, because it is a big story. Meaning, it happened and it is newsworthy because the ‘Biggest ever consumer law penalty in the nation will stand’. Can’t just pretend that didn’t happen - they have to cover it.
But the criticisms of Volkswagen are so minor, they’re basically non-existent, because of the bad publishing incentive called advertising. Volkswagen Australia spends millions advertising its unreliable shitboxes every year, and every publisher wants a wedge of that sweet, sweet advertising pie.
So they tone down the coverage. Mainstream reports might as well read in support of the ‘victim’ narrative. If you’re a big advertiser or potential advertiser, you effectively control what is said about you, far more effectively than any editor or journalist.
In the mainstream motoring media, the system is completely broken. Every so-called editor, every so-called journalist - they all want to remain hitched to that Volkswagen revenue stream. The lunches, the launches, the platinum frequent flier points, the free cars to drive every week.
An easy way to de-couple yourself from this addiction would be to use words like ‘inhuman’ or ‘anti-environmental’ to point out that this is an organisation that felt quite comfortable poisoning people unlawfully in pursuit of profit - even though these allegations are substantially true, and even balanced.
This is why the mainstream media is broken, and regular people like you increasingly turn to the new media for balance and truth. Like on the internet and YouTube, where a few people tell it like it is, having done the research, used facts, without their heads in the vice of bad incentives.
There’s nothing ‘old media’ hates more than ‘new media’ … except of course someone who used to be an old media insider, but woke up one day, had a catharsis and went over to the new side. Like me.
The second interesting point is, egos get out of control in the boardroom. As I see it, Volkswagen figured they had to fight this fine, at all costs. But in reality, $125 million is chicken feed for Volkswagen. This is an organisation that typically makes billions of Euros in profit annually, in the mid-teens. So, $125 million is nothing to them.
But they feel compelled to fight anyway, because of hubris. It’s like, ‘How dare they do that to us. Don’t they know who we are?’. These egotistical suits (no reference to individuals is made; it’s a corporate culture observation) however, seem not to factor in the cost of losing.
When you lose, it all gets dredged up and ratified - again. The Dieselgate/poisoning humanity scandal in 2015, all the legal prosecutions for the next three years, executives in the slammer, civil cases, Volkswagen becoming a criminal organisation convicted of a felony in the US.
Now they add a record anti-consumer conduct fine in Australia, seeking leave to appeal, and having said application thrown back at them in the High Court.
Every time that happens, this core issue gets oxygenated, and there are a bunch of people on the cusp of buying a Volkswagen at those times. Not to mention how sensitive market sentiment is now to environmental considerations.
See, this issue concerns not only the most inhuman corporate conduct in the automotive domain, which I can think of, but also the most anti-environmental wilful conduct.
Australia is currently bearing the brunt of collective developed world opprobrium because the dickhead Scott Morrison cannot stop sucking on the teat of coal. He, and the LNP, are addicted to coal, oil and gas. This opprobrium is also swelling up inside the electorate here, onshore. We all know he and his team are bullshitting about the environment and climate. And it’s unacceptable.
This is the backdrop against which Volkswagen saw fit to roll the dice, again, effectively paying $125 million plus costs to confirm once again that this company is - objectively - the most anti-consumer, inhuman and anti-environmental carmaker operating in Australia. Go figure, the logic behind rolling that die. Discretion meet valour - novel concept in the Volkswagen boardroom, apparently.
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