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 commission also found falsified information on stickers attached to models produced between April 2012 and November 2018, according to Yonhap
"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 the agency.
Such actions hinder customers from making correct purchasing decisions, the FTC added.
"Such practices will or are feared to hurt fair market order by preventing consumers from making a reasonable decision," the commission said.
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.
