A drop in the bucket: Italy fines Volkswagen $5.5M for diesel malfeasance - Roadshow

Levying a fine is a great way for a govement to send a message, but when your fine is a ridiculously small percentage of what others are forcing a miscreant to pay, it will hardly resonate as strongly as intended. Volkswagen recently finalized a $15 billion settlement in the US for its diesel issues, so the $5.5 million fine coming from Italy seems eminently affordable.

Italy's anti-trust agency hit Volkswagen with that fine, Reuters reports, specifically for misleading car buyers about its true diesel emissions. That's the highest fine the magnificently named Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato can impose, but it amounts to about one third of one tenth of 1 percent of that $15 billion settlement. VW faced similar scrutiny from the US Federal Trade Commission, which attacked the automaker for advertising "clean" diesels that were really just cheating diesels.