SEOUL: Volkswagen owners in South Korea are following their US counterparts in suing the German automaker over an emissions-cheating scandal, with hundreds expected to file complaints in the coming weeks.
Seoul-based Barun Law said it had filed two complaints with the court on Wednesday morning, claiming the owners were defrauded when they purchased their vehicles.
“We received at least 100 more calls from owners today, and expect to start adding many more plaintiffs from next week,” said lawyer Ha Jong-Sun.
Volkswagen, the world’s biggest carmaker by sales, has admitted that up to 11 million diesel cars worldwide are fitted with devices that can switch on pollution controls when they detect the car is undergoing testing.
They then switch off the controls when the car is on the road, allowing it to spew out harmful levels of emissions.
Ha said the practice amounted to fraud, and said his clients would be seeking unspecified damages, as well as cancellation of the initial sales contract and a refund of the full sale price, with interest from the date of purchase.
“Our clients would never have bought the cars if they had been fully aware of the real emissions controls,” he told AFP.
The cases can be consolidated in a de-facto class action suit, Ha said, although in South Korea each individual plaintiff must file a separate complaint.
Lawsuits, including class-action litigation, are also being filed by VW owners in the United States, and the company is facing investigations in a number of countries.
South Korean environmental authorities met with VW representatives last week to discuss the timing and methods for emissions tests to be conducted here, with results expected to be announced by the end of November.
Of the five models equipped with test-cheating software in the United States, four have been imported to South Korea -- the Golf, Audi A3, Jetta and Beetle.
About 59,000 of those models are on the road in South Korea now, the environment ministry said.
