\n<\/p>\n
Car manufacturers have welcomed a high court verdict that rejected most of the allegations in a \u201cdieselgate\u201d claim brought on behalf of 1.6 million UK owners of polluting cars.<\/p>\n
In her judgment, Lady Justice Cockerill said that \u201cin the majority of instances, the court found that the relevant strategy did not constitute a prohibited defeat device\u201d \u2013 software that enables the engine to behave differently in tests.<\/p>\n
However, she said that technology and strategies used in some Mercedes and Peugeot-Citro\u00ebn cars could constitute defeat devices.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the claimants said they were considering appealing, saying the judgment created a significant divergence between the legal position in Great Britain and much of Europe.<\/p>\n
The claimants had argued that manufacturers had engineered vehicles with technology that would reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in tests compared with normal driving conditions. The manufacturers denied using prohibited defeat devices.<\/p>\n
The case against the manufacturers, the largest group action trial in English legal history, was heard in the high court over 15 weeks between October 2025 and March 2026.<\/p>\n
It focused on 20 vehicles sold by five manufacturers \u2013 Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot\/Citro\u00ebn \u2013 from 2009, but the judgment also binds other manufacturers.<\/p>\n
The judge said: \u201cNot every calibration or emissions-control strategy amounts to a defeat device.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cockerill said proving intention to rig a test was necessary, adding: \u201cIt was not enough for the claimants simply to establish that the challenged strategies reduced the effectiveness of emissions-control systems outside the relevant testing conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judgment found that: \u201cTesting, however, is difficult to interpret and none of the approaches to isolating the effect of a particular calibration on NOx was entirely satisfactory.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her ruling also said that \u201cif an alternative approach to the meaning of \u2018defeat device\u2019 were taken a larger number of defeat devices would be established, including devices in each of the lead manufacturers cars\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mercedes-Benz said the court had ruled \u201cvery largely in favour\u201d of the manufacturer but said it was considering an appeal over the vehicle deemed non-compliant. The functionality was removed from vehicles in 2015.<\/p>\n
Stellantis, the owner of Peugeot-Citro\u00ebn, said it was considering an appeal over the upheld allegations.<\/p>\n
Nissan said it had always maintained that the technologies in its vehicles did not constitute defeat devices. Renault said its cars were \u201cdesigned, engineered, and manufactured in accordance with all applicable regulatory requirements\u201d.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n All four welcomed the ruling. Ford was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n This first UK legal verdict came more than a decade after it was first discovered that Volkswagen car engines were designed to operate differently under test conditions and masked the true level of NOx pollution from the vehicles.<\/p>\n The case was brought by more than 20 law firms, led by Leigh Day and Pogust Goodhead. Leigh Day said the ruling was \u201cdisappointing\u201d and meant that defeat devices that would be likely to be found to be illegal across the EU were allowed in Great Britain.<\/p>\n Senior partner Martyn Day said: \u201cThe high court has found that despite their denials, other manufacturers also used VW-style defeat devices. The judge has also found that many other defeat devices are lawful because she surprisingly disagreed with the established EU case law on what a defeat device is.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are considering with our clients whether to apply for permission to appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Pogust Goodhead\u2019s Anna Varga said the judgment \u201cdoes not bring this litigation to an end. The court has found that certain manufacturers installed unlawful defeat devices, but it also adopted a significantly narrower interpretation of the law than that applied elsewhere in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n The campaign group Mums for Lungs said it was a \u201csetback\u201d, but its director, Jemima Hartshorn, said: \u201cWhatever the courts have found, it does not change the scientific consensus \u2013 that these diesel cars are toxic. It\u2019s important that the two car companies found guilty today act swiftly to remove their vehicles and compensate for their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Car manufacturers have welcomed a high court verdict that rejected most of the allegations in a \u201cdieselgate\u201d claim brought on behalf of 1.6 million UK owners of polluting cars. In her judgment, Lady Justice Cockerill said that \u201cin the majority of instances, the court found that the relevant strategy did not constitute a prohibited defeat<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[21004,4291,6456,1495,1891,160,16257,949,1545,819,7559],"class_list":{"0":"post-51031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-1-6m","9":"tag-automotive","10":"tag-brought","11":"tag-car","12":"tag-claims","13":"tag-court","14":"tag-dieselgate","15":"tag-high","16":"tag-industry","17":"tag-owners","18":"tag-rejects"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}