Volkswagen loses Federal $125 million Dieselgate fine appeal

 

VW has lost in its appeal against a record Australian fine for lying to the public in respect of its hyper-polluting diesels. Once again, its reputation is in tatters…

 
 
 

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The full Federal Court in Australia has just raised its middle finger to Volkswagen, and declared: ‘Kindly jam your appeal where the pope doesn’t wash. 

That’ll be $125 million, thanks very much, in fines, just like we said back in 2019. You lying mother-lovers.’ (I’m paraphrasing. But that was the gist of it.)

Look, we help people buy Volkswagens. Occasionally. I do attempt to dissuade, but if one has one’s heart set: they are gorgeous cars that go great. They have some gravitational pull, I’ll grant them that - Golf R, Scirocco (before they killed it off), and the Arteon is not exactly an eyesore. 

But they’re built by the world’s leading criminal carmaker. I’m not editorialising on this. Volkswagen did plead guilty to three serious criminal felony-type charges in the US in January, 2017, which cost them $2.8 billion (US) in penalties. As far as I can determine, they are the world’s most criminal carmaker, currently. 

And, you know, it is kinda like negotiating with the Mob if your Volkswagen goes ‘number twos’ in its trousers, unexpectedly. It’s a deleted scene from Scarface, typically.

This happens a lot more than it should - a lot more than average 35 per cent more than average, according to JD Power. At least they’re consistent. 

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But if you want to inflict a Volkswagen on yourself, I promise solemnly that I will not rolls my eyes in your direction. It’s a free country.

In today’s hilarious twist, Volkswagen has lost its appeal against a record $125 million fine for lying to the public in respect of its hyper-polluting diesel shitboxes. It emerged from court once again with its junk hanging out and its reputational jumpsuit around its ankles.

See, in August of 2016, the ACCC emerged from hibernation long enough to write a stern letter to Volkswagen, advising that it was preparing a red-hot enema in Federal Court, vis-a-vis ‘Dieselgate’.

In between then and 2019, Volkswagen and the ACCC groped around under the table, felt the vegetables, metaphorically, and they jointly decided that $75 million would be an appropriate penalty, given the breadth of deceptive behaviour which Volkswagen had perpetrated upon the Australian public.

And then a judge named Justice Lindsay Foster said words to the effects of, ‘bugger that - we’re gunna fine you arseholes $125 million instead’. I like Justice Foster. 

Mr Foster actually described Volkswagen’s and the ACCC’s $75 million bilateral smooching as “manifestly inadequate” to compensate for its “false representations”.

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Justifiable Homage: Volkswagen’s rocky road

And this is where I justify calling Volkswagen ‘liars’.

A lie is simply misrepresenting the truth (or what the liar perceives the truth to be). So if a Federal Justice declares Volkswagen to be an issuer of false representations on things that matter - of substance in the consumer domain - they pretty much are liars henceforth.

Justice Foster actually said Volkswagen’s conduct was: “an egregious breach of Australian consumer law of the worst kind imaginable”. 

It was a record fine, too - roughly five times the previous gold medal for anti-consumer misbehaviour held by a shonky business called Empower Institute ($26.5 million there) and more than 12 times the previous automotive anti-consumer gold medal. ($10 million - held by Ford for the infamous PowerShit dual-clutch transmission.)

Hoaxwagen’s basis for appealing the $125 million was pretty much the standard toddler in the sandpit tantrum. Like: ‘We agreed on 75. Then a nasty man in a scary wig made us pay 125. That’s 50 more. It hardly seems fair.’ (Paraphrasing.)

The actual words they used in the appeal were “manifestly excessive”. This is a company that makes nine million vehicles a year, with revenue of 223 billion Euros last year. $125 million is not even chump change for those lying criminals. It doesn’t even pay for the (how you say) ‘high class personal assistants’.

What gets me about these arseholes, (the corporation, not the individuals within it), is that A) if Volkswagen was an individual, he or she would be a sociopath. I’m not a psychologist but it seems to me manifestly narcissistic, and completely devoid of empathy to be obsessed about your own fair treatment when the thing that got you there was ‘an egregious breach of the worst kind imaginable’.

And now the consequences are all so unfair. That’s a comedy skit that writes itself.

And, B) do they ever do some internal calculus about the cost of losing? The reputational cost. Because every time they roll the dice like this, in court, and lose, all of this reputation-trashing shit, which could be loosely described as ‘the truth about Volkswagen’, and which is generally neutrally buoyant and below the surface, it all gets dredged back up in the public domain.

It’s like a massive red flag about which company not to buy a car from. Some people reading the news are inevitably thinking about buying some overpriced shitbox Tiguan, and coverage of this nature is unlikely to nudge them across the bridge of transaction, I’d suggest. Especially when owning that vehicle means that brand’s reputation will be smeared on the consumer. Just look at Jeep, locally. Or Alfa Romeo, globally.

A lot of people don’t appreciate that ‘Dieselgate’ was morally repugnant primarily because at its core it put profit first and those criminal actions released known toxins at unacceptable and illegal levels, which will inevitably cause significant premature death. 

I think there’s a substantial group of people who don’t understand 'Dieselgate' and think it was just a regulatory breach and a fine, and buying a Volkswagen is fine now.

Don’t take my word for it, however. There’s a lot of corroboration on this - including an excellent report in Fortune.com, by Noelle Eckley Selin, an associate professor of data, systems, society and atmospheric chemistry at MIT.

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Radio Silence…

Of course, Volkswagen spends several million dollars advertising every year, much of it with President of Australia and Octogenarian Rupert Ninja Turtle.

And of course Costello’s conglomerate at Nine. Which explains why the coverage there confines itself to the thinnest veneer of facts with no consumer-centric context. Thank God, therefore, for the public broadcaster, and independent journalism (and YouTube).

Bottom line, this is another uplifting but inconsequential knee in the guts for Volkswagen. It has Made Australia Less Shit. Plus it’s a timely reminder that they are lying criminals - as advised by the Federal Court in Australia and the US Department of Justice. 

If you’re in the market for a new car, I’d suggest that buying a Volkswagen today, in Australia, is a consumer intelligence test. If you end up with one parked in your driveway, you failed.

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