BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has joined other institutional investors in suing Volkswagen in connection with the emissions scandal in which the car manufacturer is embroiled.
A spokesman for BlackRock said: “On behalf of their investors, a number of BlackRock-managed collective investment schemes are pursuing, alongside other institutional investors, legal action against Volkswagen AG in connection with Volkswagen’s failure to disclose to investors its use of ‘defeat devices’ that manipulated emission tests.”
He added that, “in light of the ongoing legal proceedings”, the asset manager could not comment further at this point.
The complaint is understood to have been filed on Friday, 16 September, and is supported by litigation funders Bentham Europe.
More than 80 investors are participating in the class action that Bentham Europe is financing, which is seeking damages of up to €2bn.
The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF), the UK’s largest local authority pension fund, is involved, announcing its participation on the same day that the governments of the German federal states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg also said they would be filing lawsuits against the company at Braunschweig District Court.
The flurry of announcements came ahead of a statute of limitations associated with the 2015 scandal. Bentham Europe said its filing comes a year after Volkswagen publicly disclosed that it was using defeat devices in its cars.
The states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg join Bavaria in pursuing legal action.
The federal state of Bavaria announced its plan to file a lawsuit in early August, doing so on behalf of its civil service pension fund.
Volkswagen was last year discovered to have used so-called defeat devices to cheat emissions tests, sending its share price tumbling.
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