A Seoul court has overturned a 32.1 billion won ($23 million) fine imposed on BMW Korea for failing to obtain certification for changes to EGR cooler components.
According to legal sources on the 16th, the Seoul Administrative Court's 14th Division (Presiding Judge Lee Sang-deok) ruled in favor of BMW Korea in January in its lawsuit against the Minister of Climate, Energy and Environment seeking cancellation of the fine.
In 2018, a significant number of fire incidents occurred in vehicles imported and sold by BMW Korea. A joint public-private investigation team organized by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport conducted an investigation and announced in December of that year that the primary cause was coolant leakage from cracks in the vehicles' EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation) coolers.
The EGR system is a type of exhaust gas reduction device installed to reduce air pollutants emitted from diesel engine vehicles. The issue arose when BMW Korea began changing components within the EGR system, including brackets, hoses, and pipes, starting around June 2014. Following the fire incidents, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment conducted an investigation around 2020 into whether the company had obtained change certification (reporting) for the EGR cooler modifications. The ministry subsequently imposed the 32.1 billion won fine on grounds that BMW Korea failed to report these matters despite being required to do so. BMW Korea then filed an administrative lawsuit, arguing that the components in question were not subject to certification and that auxiliary parts are excluded from change certification requirements under the relevant regulations.
The court accepted BMW Korea's arguments. The court noted that each modification merely constituted changes to auxiliary parts of the EGR cooler. "It is difficult to recognize that the modifications had a probability of causing meaningful adverse effects beyond a vague possibility that they could have some impact on the safety or durability of the EGR cooler," the court stated.
The court further ruled: "Even if there is a connection between the modifications and the fire incidents in this case, this fundamentally constitutes a case of safety defects in automobile parts. It is sufficient to address this through prior sanctions and criminal proceedings within the regulatory domain of the defect correction system under the Automobile Management Act."