Volkswagen has agreed to a settlement with Canadian owners of its vehicles affected by its diesel emissions scandal.
The agreement, worth $290.5 million, provides cash payments to owners of roughly 20,000 3.0-liter Volkswagen, Audi, and Porsche diesel vehicles in Canada, subject to court approval. Volkswagen has also agreed to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty, Reuters reported.
“This is an important milestone towards making things right for all of our customers with affected diesel vehicles in Canada,” Volkswagen Group Canada president and CEO Daniel Weissland said in a statement.
Last year, the automaker agreed a similar settlement in the US to spend at least US$1.22 billion to fix or buy back about 80,000 vehicles with 3.0-liter engines.
In total, the automaker has agreed to spend over US$25 billion in North America in relation to the emissions scandal. Last September, Volkswagen said that it had set aside US$30 billion to settle such concerns.
Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it had falsified pollution reports for a sizable number of its diesel cars. The automaker managed to fool emissions testing equipment by installing unauthorized “defeat device” software in its motor vehicles – when the software detects that the vehicle is being tested, it would change the performance accordingly to improve results.
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