Compensation for Mercedes Diesel drivers

Mercedes cheated with the software in its cars and sold you a car that appeared clean, but was in reality very polluting, without telling you. In many cases, Mercedes actually pretended that the cars were very clean. Mercedes thereby misled you. If you had known that the car you bought did not remotely meet emission standards, you would not have bought or leased the car at the same price. You are entitled to compensation for those damages.

Anyone who owns or has owned, or is or has been a leasee of, a Mercedes diesel vehicle produced between 1 September 2009 and 1 September 2019 and marketed in the Netherlands can apply. After adding your vehicle(s), you will receive notification from us whether the vehicle is eligible.

We issued the writ on 30 December 2020. See here for the writ. We expect the proceedings to take another 2 to 3 years or so. See the specific page on our website about the proceedings against Mercedes for more information. It is possible that follow-up proceedings may be needed to win damages.

After you have applied and added your vehicle(s), Emission Claim Foundation will keep you informed through update emails. In the meantime, if you have any questions about the state of play, please feel free to contact us at info@emissionclaim.nl

It depends on a number of factors. We charge compensation for each car. This indemnity is based on the difference between the amount paid for it by the first owner and the amount that that owner would have paid had they known that the car did not meet emission standards. We call this the 'overcharge'. So the overcharge is a percentage of the new price of your car. That percentage is yet to be determined in the proceedings and can vary depending on the type of car (sedan/station/company car etc).

The compensation that can be determined on the basis of this percentage per car must be divided among the owners of the car according to a distribution key. Your compensation therefore depends on how many owners your car has had. If you are the first owner, then all the compensation is yours. If there are several owners of the car, your compensation depends on whether you are still the owner of the car and if not, how long you have owned the car. Here you can consult some calculation examples.

The foundation works on a no-cure-no-pay basis. That means you pay nothing for registration and also do not have to pay anything if the claims are rejected. If (part of) the claim is awarded, you will pay a maximum of 25% of each compensation you receive to the foundation. The foundation uses this compensation to pay the costs of the proceedings and to pay the funder (Hagens Berman) for the investment in these proceedings and the risk taken. For more information, see the participant conditions.

Yes, you are also eligible for compensation if you bought a diesel car second-hand, as long as the car was manufactured and marketed in the Netherlands between 2009 - 2019. See the heading 'how much compensation can I expect' for calculation examples that give an indication in your compensation as a successor buyer and which circumstances are relevant.