Some thoughts about the case law response to Dieselgate

Abstract

The extraordinary impact that the famous scandal known as Dieselgate has had in recent years, from very different points of view (economic, environmental, political, etc.), has also reached the legal field, giving rise to a great number of administrative and judicial procedures at both the national, European and international levels. The development of the matter before the judicial authorities is testing the capacity of the traditional mechanisms of private law -particularly those related to contract law and tort law- to provide a satisfactory response to the affected individuals; and raises the convenience of addressing this type of problem, in the future, with partially different instruments, such as those offered today by the rules on unfair competition.