Today, the High Court (Lady Justice Cockerill sitting as a High Court Judge) handed down the liability judgment in the Diesel Pan-NOx Emissions Litigation, which is the largest group litigation ever mounted before English courts, and consolidated 1.6 million claims for damages brought on behalf of purchasers of diesel vehicles.

The Claimants' case against Ford Motor Company, that it equipped diesel vehicles with unlawful emissions-cheating software, has failed.

The Court examined the statutory definition of a defeat device and the circumstances in which differences between laboratory test performance when the vehicle was “type approved” and real-world operation may give rise to liability.

The judgment concluded that inter alia a defeat device is a device which senses one or more parameters of the test (including its boundary) and objectively operates with the purpose of causing the emissions control system to work more effectively when it senses that it is being subjected to a test cycle compared to how it works in out of test driving; and for a defeat device to be found there needs to be an intention to cause the emissions control system to operate differently when it senses it is being tested.

The judgment found that none of the Ford vehicles at issue in the trial contained unlawful defeat devices.

Georgia Terry acted for Ford Motor Company, led by Neil Moody KC (as he then was), George Peretz KC, Sonia Nolten KC, George Hilton, Benjamin Phelps and Kate Legh, instructed by McGuireWoods London LLP.

A link to a summary of the judgment may be found here: Ford Motor Company wins in ‘behemoth’ multibillion-pound diesel emissions litigation: [2026] EWHC 1753 (KB)