(Bloomberg) — The Justice Department sued Volkswagen AG, accusing the German automaker of installing illegal devices meant to defeat emissions testing on nearly 600,000 vehicles, marking another blow against the company which has been rocked by the pollution scandal since September.
The complaint filed Monday in federal court in Detroit is the first case against the company brought by the Justice Department, which is also investigating the carmaker for possible criminal conduct related to the devices.
The biggest possible penalty under the complaint could be against Volkswagen on all of the alleged violations for all of the cars. However, judges rarely impose the maximum penalty and some of the alleged violations could be considered to be overlapping, bringing down any final amount, a senior Justice Department official said. Nevertheless, the penalties requested against the company would clearly be in the billions of dollars, another official said.
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