U.S. Appeals Court Upholds $10 Billion Volkswagen Settlement A U.S. federal appeals court has upheld Volkswagen’s $10 billion settlement with nearly 500,000 owners of polluting diesel vehicles. Volkswagen has agreed to pay more than $25 billion in the U.S. for claims from owners, environmental regulators, states and dealers. It has also offered to buy back about 500,000 polluting U.S. vehicles. Monday's ruling pertains to a settlement covering the owners and former owners of 475,000 polluting 2.0-liter vehicles. So far, the carmaker has bought back about 350,000 of the 2.0-liter U.S. diesel vehicles through mid-February. Volkswagen admitted back in September 2015 to secretly installing software in U.S. cars to cheat government exhaust emissions tests.