Environmentalists suffered a setback on Monday when Germany’s top appeals court threw out their cases seeking to ban Mercedes-Benz and BMW from selling new combustion-engine cars from November 2030.
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The federal court of justice in Karlsruhe upheld lower court rulings against the lawsuits, brought by three managing directors from the DUH environmental lobby
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The DUH had based its case on a “carbon budget” calculated for each of the two automakers
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But the court ruled that no such budget had been allocated to individual companies
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Both Mercedes-Benz and BMW welcomed the ruling while stressing their commitment to sustainability
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The decision provides “legal certainty for companies operating in Germany”, a BMW spokesperson said
