Daimler on Tuesday agreed to pay 870 million euros (approximately $960 million) to settle a probe by prosecutors in the automaker's hometown of Stuttgart, Germany, into rigged diesel cars sold by Mercedes-Benz.
Daimler recalled 774,000 vehicles in Europe last year after some of the vehicles, mostly C-Class and E-Class models, were discovered by German authorities to be in non-compliance with emissions rules. The automaker has since been accused by authorities of selling at least 684,000 non-complying vehicles.
The automaker had already established a fund worth 1.6 billion euros in July to deal with its diesel-related legal matters and said the fine will not result in any negative effect on earnings.
The fine concludes the Stuttgart prosecutors' probe into Daimler's involvement in diesel emissions cheating. Porsche and Audi were fined 535 million euros and 842 million euros, respectively, by German authorities for their own involvement. And the Volkswagen Group, which Audi is a part of, was fined 1 billion euros for allowing millions of over-polluting cars on European roads.
Total, the VW Group has spent more than $30 billion in fines, buybacks, and fixes globally, but its diesel scandal isn't over yet. On Tuesday, CEO Herbert Diess together with Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch and former CEO Martin Winterkorn were charged by German authorities with market manipulation. The executives are alleged to have deliberately delayed informing markets of the financial fallout related to the scandal.
