Mercedes-Benz escapes criminal charges in the US diesel scandal. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has closed its investigation, the Swabian automobile company confirmed on Saturday in a corresponding report Handelsblatt. Mercedes-Benz had been accused of excessive emissions from around 250,000 diesel cars. “With the DOJ’s decision, we are taking another important step towards legal certainty in connection with various diesel proceedings. We have cooperated fully with the US Department of Justice and made the matter transparent at great expense,” said Renata Jungo Brüngger, board member at Mercedes-Benz for integrity, governance and sustainability.
The process has been dragging on since April 2016. The DOJ investigation looked into potentially criminal conduct by Mercedes-Benz employees or representatives related to the calibration and disclosure of functionality of diesel vehicle emissions control systems, a Mercedes spokesman said, explaining the request to conduct an internal investigation a common procedure used by US law enforcement authorities for potentially illegal behavior by companies. “We evaluated 1.7 million documents, conducted more than 70 interviews with current and former employees and submitted over 300,000 documents to the US Department of Justice,” Brüngger told the Handelsblatt. In September 2020, the car manufacturer ended a class action lawsuit and civil authority proceedings in the USA with settlements worth billions.