8 Worst Corporate Scandals in Europe

3. Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

Although discovered in the US, scandal bounces back to the German city of Wolfsburg where Volkswagen is headquartered. The problem here is German automaker’s diesel engine emission rating which was systematically tweaked to fulfill the ever-increasing Environmental Protection Agency standards. Volkswagen’s engineers created a software which could detect when the cars and their diesel engines were being tested. This “defeat device” was then able to tweak the emissions helping the engine pass the tests. Volkswagen has later admitted that around 11 million cars worldwide feature this software. The process is still ongoing, but it’s evident that the Germans will have to pay a large sum in reparations. In fact, the company has estimated they’ll need to spend around $9.5 billion to recall all of their faulty vehicles and deal with additional consequences. You can safely bet it’ll take even more than that, and complete losses will probably never be established. Furthermore, their sales in North America will almost certainly take a heavy blow over the next few years, but their sales in Germany are soaring at the moment. It’s called patriotism.