By Park Si-soo
The Ministry of the Environment said Thursday it had fined the Korean unit of Mercedes Benz one billion won ($917,000) for selling more than 4,000 vehicles that used parts related to exhaust emissions, which it had not approved.
A spokesperson for the German carmaker said the company will pay the fine without complaint.
According to the ministry and the automaker, Mercedes sold a total of 4,130 vehicles ㅡ 1,853 C220 CDIs, 1,348 E220 CDIs and 929 GLK 220s ㅡ on the domestic market between May 2011 and last August.
Core parts controlling exhaust emissions used in these cars were models not approved by the ministry, which is a violation of the country’s Anti-Air Pollution Law. According to the law, the government is entitled fine violators one billion won or 1.5 percent of the profits from the sales of the cars in question.
Mercedes said it replaced previously used parts with upgraded ones, which had not received ministry approval, in May 2012.
Park Yeon-jae, an environment ministry official, said Mercedes voluntarily reported the unapproved replacement to the government during an inspection of imported cars in July last year under the supervision of the National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER). The NIER is responsible for supervising exhaust emissions of imported cars.
“Although they used unapproved parts by mistake, the actual level of exhaust emissions of the vehicles in question was confirmed to be within permissible level by the law,” Park said.
Kim Jung-soo, head of the NIER, said, “I believe that Mercedes put the disputed vehicles up for sale by mistake prior winning our endorsement.”