THE DIESEL EMISSIONS SCANDAL AT VOLKSWAGEN AG: THE FACTS

If one wishes to analyse the enforcement of consumer protection law and capital markets law worldwide, the diesel scandal appears to present a perfect opportunity. The car manufacturer Volkswagen – and perhaps also other car manufacturers – allegedly manipulated their diesel engines in order to comply with emission requirements. As the largest car manufacturer in the world, Volkswagen sold its cars in almost every country. Volkswagen and its subsidiaries, such as Audi, had installed a ‘defeat device’ in their diesel engines in order to make emissions appear lower during emissions testing than they actually are in everyday use of the vehicles. Even if the permissible emission limits in the individual countries differ to some extent, the facts of the cases – namely the manipulated diesel engines – remain the same.

THE BOOK INSPIRED BY THE JEAN-MONNET CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE INSPIRE: PEOPLE

The Jean-Monnet Centre of Excellence INspiRE (European Integration – Rule of Law and Enforcement) at the University of Augsburg aims to bring together several legal spheres and to collaborate across the various areas of the law, as similar questions arise in multiple Member States of the European Union. Its mission is to conduct research on European law from the perspective of legal enforcement (‘law in action’). The people behind INspiRE are Thomas MJ Möllers, Ferdinand Wollenschläger, Wolfgang Wurmnest (all Augsburg), Tong Zhan (Beijing), Frédérique Ferrand (Lyon), Beate Gsell (Munich) and Enrico Camilleri (Palermo). It is funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

INSPIRE's LEGAL METHODOLOGY: THE INTRADISCIPLINARY AND INTERNATIONAL APPROACH

LEGAL METHOLOLOGY: THE THREE PILLARS

INspiRE is based on three pillars. The first ‘intra-disciplinary-pillar’ is particularly characteristic of the project – through this approach general topics are examined from the perspective of different fields of law. This allows for an in-depth depiction of the underlying difficulties within the framework of legal enforcement, and it enriches research with synergistic effects vis-à-vis innovative solutions existing at the macro level. Thus, the first INspiRE conference in November 2018 discussed the issue of private enforcement of EU competition and state aid law; the second conference in May 2019 – the results of which are published in this book – dealt with issues surrounding the enforcement of consumer and capital markets law.