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The High Court has today given judgment in a case that raised important issues as to the legal effect of regulatory decisions in EU Member States on UK commercial claims based on breach of the relevant EU regulations (either before the end of the transitional period or after it, where those EU regulations remain in effect as retained EU or assimilated law under the EU Withdrawal Act 2028).
The judgment was given in the context of preliminary issues in the “Dieselgate” group proceedings being brought in the High Court against various motor manufacturers on behalf of purchasers of diesel cars and trucks, based on allegations that the vehicles contained prohibited “defeat devices” contrary to EU rules on vehicle emissions.
In Germany, the relevant regulatory authority (the KBA) had over the relevant period issued various decisions that, according to the German manufacturers concerned, contained findings that their vehicles did not contain prohibited defeat devices. The German manufacturers claimed that those findings precluded the English court from finding that the vehicles at issue did contain such defeat devices.
The High Court rejected the German manufacturers’ case. It found, first, that the KBA decisions at issue were not binding on a German court determining equivalent civil claims as a matter of German law (a point that it was agreed precluded their being binding elsewhere in the EU or in the UK). Second, on the basis that that conclusion was wrong, it found that EU law (and retained EU/assimilated law) did not require national courts faced with civil claims based on breach of EU emissions regulations to defer to findings by regulatory bodies in other EU states that there was no such breach.
The question of whether the vehicles at issue did contain prohibited defeat devices is due to be heard in autumn 2025 with judgment expected in spring of 2026.
George Peretz KC and Anneli Howard KC appeared, respectively, for Ford and Nissan.