Twenty-five million euros. This is the amount of the fine paid by the Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors for its involvement in the sprawling “Dieselgate” affair. A spokesperson for the manufacturer in Japan confirmed on Monday that the fine ordered by the Frankfurt prosecutor’s office had been paid “before the end of March” and that the group had “not appealed”.
The Bloomberg agency had reported on Friday that by paying this sum, the partner of Renault and Nissan had thus put an end to an investigation by the German justice according to which vehicles not complying with the rules had been put on sale by Mitsubishi at following a lack of “supervision” of the group’s middle managers.
The builder denies any fraud
The Japanese manufacturer had claimed to have committed “no fraud” on the pollution levels of its diesel engines after these searches, particularly concentrated on its 1.6 and 2.2-liter diesel engines certified according to EURO 5b and 6b standards.
The notice of fine received by Mitsubishi “states that there have in the past been violations of neglect of supervisory duties related to approval procedures,” the spokesperson said. “It was not found that these procedures had been violated knowingly or deliberately”, and the opinion of the Frankfurt prosecution “did not identify intentional or fraudulent behavior,” he added.
The automaker’s searches were part of the vast scandal of rigged diesel engines that erupted in 2015, when the German manufacturer Volkswagen admitted to having equipped 11 million vehicles with software capable of distorting the level of emissions. Many other automobile groups were then implicated in their turn in this affair, from Daimler to Fiat Chrysler via the French Renault and PSA (including its German brand Opel), or even the German supplier Bosch.