A few days ago Volkswagen agreed to pay US owners of some of its cars $20 billion.
With $20bn, you could buy most of the island nations of the Pacific and the Caribbean, including places like Vanuatu, Tonga and Samoa. I know what I'd rather be doing.
Anyway, US District Court judge Charles Breyer gave his preliminarily approval to a partial $20bn settlement between the Volkswagen Group and VW, Audi and Porsche owners who had brought 888 actions, and actions brought by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Trade Commission.
Under the terms, VW will spend $13bn buying back or repairing 475,000 VWs and Audis with 2.0-litre engines and paying owners up to $13,000 each. VW will also pay $7bn in fines and promotion of green cars.
So what happened at the owner of some of the world's most respected auto brands including Bentley, Lamborghini, Audi and Porsche? Towards the end of the 90s it was clear VW had a culture problem. The company's HR team found an interesting way to solve their labour problems. They set up "a company slush fund to pay for high-class prostitutes and to sponsor the mistresses of trade union officials".
In September 2015, VW admitted to installing the cheating device on more than 11 million cars worldwide sold in 150 countries.