Ten years after the so-called 'dieselgate' scandal came to light, substantive hearings in group litigation on behalf of some 1.6 million car owners have begun in London. 

The Pan-NOx group litigation case, before The Honourable Lady Justice Cockerill DBE, sitting as a judge in the High Court, opened in Court 76 of the Royal Courts of Justice this morning. It is listed to run for three months, with a further possible hearing to deal with any financial redress, listed for October next year. 

In the current trial the judge will determine whether 20 sample diesel vehicles produced from 2012-17 by five car manufacturers contained prohibited defeat devices (PDDs) and, if so, whether the presence of the devices give rise to private law claims for breach of contract and breach of statutory duty. The car rmakers - Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot/Citroën, Renault and Nissan - deny wrongdoing. 

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Opening for the claimants, Tom de la Mare KC of Blackstone Chambers said: ‘The law supports our case at every turn and because the defendants have not followed the law as their own internal guidance shows.’

Defeat devices, the claimants argue, have ‘long been prohibited’. In written submissions, including a skeleton argument running to 286 pages with appendices, the claimants said the legal arguments and submissions made by the defendants had been ‘unsuccessfully mounted before’ . They add: ‘Numerous improbable, even fanciful legal arguments are advanced to seek to avert findings of a PDD in the [sample vehicles]. A very clear picture emerges from disclosure of the common corporate and calibration philosophy that prevailed before the industry hastily tried to respond to dieselgate.’

The trial continues. The defendants are expected to begin their openings from Wednesday.