— BMW will allegedly pay 10 million euros ($11.6 million) to Germany after government prosecutors said the fine would end investigations into alleged emissions cheating.
According to a report from German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, paying the fine will avoid further legal actions against BMW concerning software that was installed on about 7,600 vehicles.
Following the floodgates that were opened when Volkswagen was caught cheating on emissions tests, various governments opened investigations into additional automakers to determine if they had been hiding anything.
BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen faced accusations they colluded to cheat European emissions tests after BMW denied it altered the emissions on vehicles. However, BMW CEO Harald Krueger admitted in 2015 that mistakes had been made years ago which resulted in problems with 11,700 vehicles.
Krueger blamed the problems on the incorrect use of software by employees, a problem that was allegedly fixed when Germany's Federal Motor Transport Authority ordered a recall.
BMW says the mistakes on the diesel vehicles were unintentional and involved software meant for different vehicles with different emissions configurations, but with the same engines. BMW told prosecutors using the wrong software wasn't a deliberate act to manipulate emissions but just an oversight by the automaker.
Klaus Froehlich, BMW's head of development, claims the automaker has protocols in place to block emissions cheating devices and BMW has never used defeat devices to fool government tests.
In addition, a statement from BMW said two studies on 14 BMW vehicles conducted by the the International Council on Clean Transportation found no problems with nitrogen oxide emissions.
