VW Banks On Federal Shield To Beat States' Emissions Suits

Noah Perch-Ahern was quoted by Law360’s Linda Chiem in an article discussing Volkswagen AG’s recent wins in lawsuits from states suing the automaker for environmental violations stemming from its 2015 diesel emissions-cheating scandal.

According to the article, Volkswagen used The Clean Air Act preemption to successfully defeat lawsuits from a number of states, including Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri and Illinois, who sought to use their own environmental standards laws to collect billions of dollars in additional damages from Volkswagen.

“The significance of these rulings is a clear weight of authority telling the remaining non-settling state governments that the Clean Air Act bars the states from trying to broadly regulate emissions control devices in vehicles, that this authority exclusively resides in the federal government,” said Perch-Ahern.

“The upshot for Volkswagen is a strong signal that the scope of its remaining liabilities will be defined and determined by federal regulators,” Perch-Ahern added. “This is a significant accomplishment, at least for now, in terms of managing the financial fallout from the emissions cheating scandal.”