Daimler fined for diesel cheat

German premium car-maker Daimler will not contest a Stuttgart public prosecutor’s €870 million ($A1.4 billion) fine over its own version of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate.

The parent company of Mercedes-Benz yesterday waived its right of appeal over the fine, and must now pay the State of Baden-Württemberg in cash within six weeks.

The penalty relates to Daimler’s enthusiastic use of thermal switches for its diesel engines, which shut off their particulate scrubbing function in cold and hot weather.

Despite years of claiming the strategy was perfectly legal within the European Union, German prosecutors honed in on the company after Volkswagen’s diesel crisis blew up in 2015.

Daimler chief Ola Kallenius was left with the poisoned chalice of the diesel affair by former CEO Dieter Zetsche, and was forced to repeatedly revise the company’s earnings forecast to cater for the fine he knew was coming.

The prosecutors’ office stated the fine related to Daimler negligently violating its supervisory duties over diesel emissions dating back to 2008, allowing some cars to breach emissions limits.

However, the office also insisted the fine did not leave Daimler in the clear, as its investors hoped, because it was maintaining its ongoing proceedings into software-related emissions manipulation.

"It is in the company's best interest to end the administrative offence proceeding in a timely and comprehensive manner and thereby conclude this matter," Daimler said, confirming it would not appeal.

Prosecutors first raided Daimler’s offices as part of a diesel-related fraud investigation in May 2017, and it still faces US Environmental Protection Agency investigations into some of its cars.