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In 2020, Mercedes-Benz South Korea was fined 77.6 billion won by South Korean regulators for artificially tampering with diesel vehicle emission data. On Monday, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) issued a new fine on Mercedes-Benz's South Korean subsidiary and its German parent company, accusing Mercedes-Benz of still using false and deceptive advertisements to mislead consumers after the diesel incident. KFTC imposed penalties.

Earlier, Mercedes-Benz was found to have installed cheating software on its diesel vehicles, which allowed vehicles to test emission certification with lower pollutant emission data to meet national regulatory requirements. However, when driving for about 30 minutes on the actual road, the highest nitrogen oxide emission is 14 times of the standard value, which falsifies the emission results. South Korean regulators believe that Mercedes-Benz only emphasized the most reasonable situation of the emission control system, deliberately concealing the true performance of the vehicle in the actual use process.

According to the survey, a total of 15 Mercedes-Benz models have been installed with such software. As a result, Mercedes-Benz Korea was fined 77.6 billion won in 2020 for artificially tampering with emissions data for a total of 37154 diesel vehicles sold in South Korea between 2012 and 2018.

South Korean regulators split the matter in two after fining Mercedes-Benz for data changes in South Korea, and regulators continued to pursue responsibility from another perspective on Monday. In order to promote the 15 models, between August 2013 and December 2016, Mercedes-Benz appeared in the company's catalogue, magazines and press releases, as well as public advertisements that these vehicles had very low nitrogen oxide emissions. Fully meet Euro 6 emission standards, and label the products comply with the words "Korean Atmospheric Environment Law." KFTC believes that this will "affect consumers to make reasonable decisions, thereby undermining the fair market order," and therefore imposed another fine from the perspective of false propaganda and believes that this is "by no means simple exaggeration and deception." Mercedes-Benz disagreed with the survey, saying that 90 per cent of vehicles would drive in South Korea for less than 30 minutes, while the company added that "SCR reduced by 90 per cent of nitrogen oxides" in advertisements and brochures is a common expression in the automotive industry and academia and does not mislead the public. SCR stands for "selective catalytic reduction technology".

Volkswagen was first exposed in Germany to use this cheating method, and Volkswagen admitted that it intervened in vehicle emissions through specially developed software to achieve compliance results in product certification or testing. However, during normal driving, the actual emission is 10-14 times higher than the standard. The software is installed on more than 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide. Volkswagen also paid a huge price, attracting year after year of regulatory investigations and lawsuits. Volkswagen spent 25 billion yuan in 2016 to settle with American consumers. Volkswagen's chief financial officer confirmed that Volkswagen's expenditure was 2.3 billion euros in 2019 and 2.9 billion euros in 2020. In May last year, the German Supreme Court ruled that Volkswagen Group must pay civil compensation to consumers who suffered losses due to "emission gates". And carry out discount buyback for vehicles with the above emission problems. In addition, Britain, Canada, Australia and other countries have also followed up on the investigation and punishment of the emission gate. Volkswagen had previously calculated that the total amount of fines imposed by the Volkswagen Group for the "emission gate" incident had exceeded 30 billion euros.

This is the end of an investigation into five car companies related to emissions doors in South Korea, which fined Audi Volkswagen, Nissan, Stellantis and Porsche for similar emissions manipulation incidents last year. South Korea's Mercedes-Benz said it had not yet received a formal document, so it had not yet responded to the penalty decision.

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