Sergio Pasini has been arrested in Italy. That name probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but Pasini was partly responsible for diesel engines of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles where illegalities were found in the US.
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles was accused in the US of cheating emissions from diesel engines in 2017. It would be engines that were supplied in models of Jeep and Ram. In the United States, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) raised this issue. At the end of last year, it was announced that FCA was setting aside millions for a settlement with the US Department of Justice. The stocking may not be over yet. On Wednesday, Sergio Pasini, a former manager of FCA’s engine program who has previously been linked to the tampering, was arrested in his home country. That reports Reuters.
Pasini, along with a colleague, was indicted by a US federal jury earlier this year for possibly deliberately misleading US emissions tests through engine tampering. This is undoubtedly related to the arrest. Stellantis, because of the merger between Groupe PSA and FCA, now the group in question, wants to Reuters not respond substantively to the arrest.
Incidentally, it is not only an American matter that the former Fiat Chrysler is accused of tampering with diesel engines. There are also suspicions in Europe about Jeep (and Suzuki that bought a diesel engine from FCA) and at the beginning of this year the Dutch government even filed a complaint against Stellantis because of these suspicions. Only since December 2020 has it been legally possible in Europe to penalize such violations or to revoke previously issued type approvals for cars. So far, however, no breakthrough has been achieved in this case.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl