According to Bosch, the automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen also has to pay a fine for manipulating the exhaust gas emissions of diesel vehicles. The public prosecutor’s office in Stuttgart imposed a fine of 42.5 million euros on Wednesday for negligent violation of the duty of supervision by those responsible.
Starting in 2002, ZF had delivered gearbox software to various carmakers that had not been sufficiently tested for the possibility of misuse. For a car manufacturer, this led to the vehicles emitting more nitrogen oxides than permitted. That was determined by the Federal Motor Transport Authority, the authority said.
ZF announced that the violation of the duty of supervision occurred at a middle management level. ZF AG will not appeal against the decision. The supplier did not want to comment on which automobile manufacturer had software manipulation.
Bosch had to pay a fine of 90 million euros in 2019 for a corresponding administrative offense in connection with Dieselgate. The fines for the Volkswagen Group, in which the diesel scandal was exposed in 2015, amounted to one billion euros. Violations at the VW subsidiaries Audi and Porsche as well as at Daimler were punished with high three-digit millions.
