Stellantis pleads guilty, will pay $300 million over allegations of emissions fraud

The parent company of Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge has agreed to plead guilty to criminal conduct and pay $300 million to settle a probe into its effort to illegally conceal the amount of pollution created by its diesel engine vehicles.

The guilty plea will end a years-long probe by the US Department of Justice into the automaker's efforts to evade emissions requirements for more than 100,000 older Ram pickup trucks and Jeep SUVs.

The plea deal is expected to be announced next week. A person from the company declined to comment. The Department of Justice did not reply to the request.

The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission have been investigating emissions fraud by the company since at least 2019. The DOJ forced the automaker to pay out $307 million to owners of affected cars after the automaker settled a civil case.

So far, only one senior manager has been charged. Two more employees of Stellantis were charged with emissions fraud by the DOJ last year.

In a December 2021, filing, the company said it would have to pay penalties due to the fraud allegations. Private lawsuits related to the scheme were subject to it.

The public learned of Volkswagen's diesel emission cheating scandal seven years ago. At least 600,000 diesel vehicles in the US and 1.5 million vehicles worldwide were accused of having so-called "defeat devices" installed to trick government exhaust emissions tests.

A number of other automakers have been implicated in similar schemes. Daimler was allowed to pay more than $2 billion in criminal charges after the DOJ investigated the company. Last year, federal investigators ended their investigation into the process Ford uses to evaluate the emissions of its vehicles, without filing any charges.