When does compliance need to step forward and stand up for the reputation of a business? How about for an entire industry? I thought of those questions when considering the European reaction to the Volkswagen settlement in the United States around its emissions-testing scandal, where it agreed to pay out some $15B in fines, penalties, and compensation to affect VW car owners.
VW has offered to compensate U.S. car owners between $5,100 to $10,000 per car for VW’s fraudulent activity in installing defeat devices to fool emissions testing protocols. Yet VW has offered nothing, nada, zero, nil, zilch to its customers in Europe; its biggest market. This is one of the most tone-deaf non-concessions recently engaged in by a company which has done nothing but step on its own feet since it denied to U.S. regulators that it had installed defeat devices. Yet, the company seems to be not only completely oblivious to how it treats its largest customer base but also “could do reputational damage to the wider industry, with a knock-on effect on the reception that the sector will get when it tries to lobby the regional bloc on other issues.
