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South Korea Suspended The Sale of 32 Volkswagen Group Models

The Volkswagen Group is in trouble again, but this time, it is just in South Korea, where authorities have suspended the sale of 32 of its models.
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Contrary to expectation, this sale suspension is not related directly to the Dieselgate scandal, but was discovered when investigators raided the company’s local headquarters. At the time, they found evidence that revealed that the Volkswagen Group had submitted forged documents on emissions and or noise level tests for 32 of its models.

Volkswagen had apparently anticipated the South Korean government’s decision, and had suspended sales of most of its models on July 25, ahead of the announcement. One of the company’s local executives was arrested after South Korean prosecutors raided the offices of the branch.

The sale suspension includes Audi, Volkswagen, and Bentley models, as Automotive News reports. Along with the temporary sale suspension, the Volkswagen Group also received a fine of 17.8 billion won, which is the equivalent of just $16.6 million. When compared to the company’s settlement in the USA and its financial power overall, we can afford (pun intended) to say “just $16 million.”

South Korea is Asia’s fourth-biggest economy, and the Volkswagen Group tripled its sales in the said country last year, reaching 35,778 vehicles. The sale ban also brought upon the revocation of certification for 83,000 vehicles of the Audi, Volkswagen, and Bentley brands.

In total, the Volkswagen Group has a total of 209,000 vehicles sold in South Korea that no longer have a certification of approval from the authorities. At the moment, it is unclear what the automaker has to do to obtain the necessary certificates for those vehicles. We are thinking about the cars with falsified noise or emissions reports, not the Dieselgate-affected models.

Compared to Volkswagen’s sales results in South Korea, local authorities have managed to remove the certification for approximately 68% of the vehicles sold by the automaker in the country since 2007.

Out of the 209,000 Volkswagen Group vehicles without a certification in South Korea, about 126,000 are related to the Dieselgate situation.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
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Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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