An American court gave one month to global automotive giant Volkswagen (VW) and U.S. regulatory bodies on Thursday to come up with a final agreement in VW's emissions scandal.
The U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer from the Northern District of California said he gives VW, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Justice Department until April 21 'to announce a concrete proposal for getting the polluting vehicles off the road.'
The judge insisted that the proposal should be 'specific and detailed' and stressed that most of the outstanding issues between the parties should be wrapped up until that date.
In addition, the judge urged the sides to come up with a plan to 'remedy' around 580,000 diesel VW vehicles in the U.S. roads.
He clarified the remedy plan on Thursday by saying '...the most important matter in front of us is the status of vehicle remediation; that is, in plain English, what's to be done about the 600,000 or so vehicles on the roads today which are not in compliance with environmental standards.'
In his previous ruling on Feb. 25, Judge Breyer had given the sides until March 24.
The EPA requested in a statement that VW recall some of its diesel vehicles off the U.S. roads in November 2015, and in Feb. 2016, the U.S. Justice Department sued VW for $46 billion.
On Sept. 18, 2015, EPA claimed that the German automotive company manipulated emissions tests through software in some of its cars, resulting in 40 times more environmental pollution than other vehicles.
Later, VW admitted that around 11 million of its diesel vehicles around the world had the software. The company announced that it has set aside a budget of €6.5 billion for damages.
While the German automaker has fired 10 of its top executives in an internal investigation for the scandal, its CEO Martin Winterkorn also resigned.
By Ovunc Kutlu in New York
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr