South Korea Fines Mercedes-Benz $16.87 Over Gas Emission Falsification - Reports

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2022) South Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) revealed on Sunday that Mercedes-Benz provided false information on gas emissions of its diesel vehicles and ordered the company to fix it and to pay a fine of 20.2 billion won ($16.87 million), South Korea's news agency Yonhap reported.

Mercedes-Benz was reported to have installed illegal software in its vehicles so that pollution mitigation devices showed lower gas emission levels, according to the FTC. The misinformation was also specified in signed attached to Mercedes cars between April 2012 and November 2018, the commission found out.

"Though Mercedes-Benz claimed that it only used typical phrases about well-known performances of the emission mitigation devices, concealing the intentional implementation of illegal software and claiming its vehicles perform the best are beyond simple exaggeration and deception," the regulator said, as quoted by Yonhap.

Last year, the FTC also fined other carmakers, such as Audi-Volkswagen Korea, Nissan Motor, Stellantis Korea, and Porsche AG, for gas emission level rigging, the news agency added.