Judge in VW Case Seeks Deal Master
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Volkswagen A.G.’s legal problems tied to its emissions scandal could be over before they’ve hardly begun.
In one of his first orders, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer has asked plaintiffs lawyers suing Volkswagen to suggest the best person to oversee settlement of more than 500 class actions.
The selection of a special settlement master is not uncommon, but it usually takes place much later in the course of litigation. Many plaintiffs lawyers have predicted that Volkswagen could quickly settle the litigation, having already admitted that 11 million cars and trucks have a “defeat device” in them designed to cheat emissions tests, including 482,000 in the United States. Then, on Dec. 17, Volkswagen announced that it had hired famed claims administrator Kenneth Feinberg to set up a compensation fund for an estimated 500,000 diesel-car owners. Feinberg, managing partner of The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg in Washington, gave few details about the program, including when it would begin accepting claims. Volkswagen reached out to him to set up the program “in an effort to divert those claims out of the court system and into a claims program that will provide remedies to those automobile owners,” he said.
Read more: www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202745284821/Judge-in-VW-Case-Seeks-Deal-Master#ixzz3v3HC3ujw
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