The Supreme Court of England and Wales ruled in favour of five car manufacturers in a case of alleged manipulation of pollutant emissions – concluding that there was no irregularity.
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13/07/2026
by
News to Minutes
Five car manufacturers won a court battle in the UK, within the framework of alleged falsification of pollutant emissions in your vehicles.
In this particular situation, there were 880,000 complaining owners, with a sample of 20 vehicles analyzed from Citroën/Peugeot, Ford, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan and Renault.
According to the BBC, the trial ended in March, but the ruling of the Supreme Court of England and Wales was only issued in the last few days.
Judge Sara Cockerill concludes that most strategies did not involve emission manipulation devices, rejecting therefore much of the closing arguments against the builders.
The complainants claimed in court that the cars had devices to detect a test and change the pollutant emissions (nitrous oxides) in order to comply with the rules.
It is read in summary the decision: “A manipulation device is a device that feels one or more test parameters (including its limits) and operates objectively in order to make the emission control system work more effectively when it feels that it is being subjected to a test cycle compared to how it works outside the tests”.
To the court, not all calibration devices or emission control strategies are considered for handling, requiring “an intention to lead the emission control system to operate differently when it feels that it is being tested”.
Still, exceptions were found in some Citroën/Peugeot cars from Mercedes-Benz. In question are “a device from the cooling point in Mercedes cars”, taken from the units updated from December 2015; and “a split injection strategy used in some vehicles Peugeot-Citroën Euro 5”.
In October, there will be a new trial, where appropriate measures will be determined, consequences of possible “judicial” infringement and other “damage” issues. Moreover, there should be appeals by the complainants after this defeat in court.
More than ten years of “dieselgate”
This case is not linked to the scandal of falsifying polluting emissions (known as “dieselgate”), but it certainly reminds you. It appeared in 2015, when U.S. authorities discovered that Volkswagen was installing software mechanisms for diesel cars to present lower emission values in tests against the actual use context.
The German builder would admit a deliberate action that affected about 11 million automobiles worldwide. It would pay several billion euros in fines, agreements, compensation and legal costs worldwide.