The EU Commission has given a consortium led by Volkswagen the green light to take over the car rental company Europcar.

This means that the last condition precedent of the takeover bid has been met, VW announced on Wednesday.

The Europcar shareholders now have until June 10 to accept the offer.

If not enough shareholders decide to take this step, the deadline can be extended by a further ten days.

VW wants to take over more than 90 percent of Europcar.

If this threshold is exceeded, the offer price will increase by one cent to 51 cents per share, it said.

Together with the asset manager Attestor and the Dutch mobility provider Pon Holdings, VW is offering 2.9 billion euros for the car rental.

platform for mobility

So far, the consortium has secured 68 percent of Europcar.

The responsible VW board member Christian Dahlheim said the company favors the squeezeout, "but it is not mandatory".

Even with the 68 percent, VW can make all business decisions in the consortium.

At the same time he announced investments.

"We assume that several hundred million will have to be invested to bring the infrastructure up to date." But these would have to be invested from Europcar's cash flow.

Europcar is set to become the leading mobility provider as a platform for car rental, ride-sharing services and car-sharing.

Competitors are the car rental company Sixt and the mobility services of the Now Group, which have since been sold to Stellantis.

VW sees a strategic advantage in the combination of car rental and other mobility services.

More than 70,000 plaintiffs

In Great Britain, the automotive group has meanwhile concluded a settlement of around 227 million euros (193 million pounds) after a British class action lawsuit in the diesel scandal.

More than 90,000 owners of diesel vehicles from the Volkswagen brands VW, Audi, Seat and Skoda had complained because of manipulated emission data.

The case, which was due to be heard in London's High Court in January 2023, is believed to be the largest class action lawsuit ever brought before an English court.

As part of the settlement, no admissions of liability, cost causation or loss were made, the group emphasized in a joint statement with the plaintiff on Wednesday.

At the same time, VW apologized to its customers for installing the manipulation software and stated that they wanted to regain their trust.

"The settlement is another important milestone on the way for the Volkswagen Group to put the deeply regrettable incidents behind us by September 2015," said VW Chief Legal Officer Philip Haarmann, according to the announcement.

The CEO of the law firm Slater and Gordon, which represented around 70,000 plaintiffs, was "immensely proud" of the result.

"The settlement eliminates a long, complex and expensive court case and we are pleased to have reached this settlement for our clients as a result of the class action."

A so-called defeat device had detected in the EA189 diesel engine installed in millions of cars whether the car was in a test situation.

Only then was the nitrogen oxide cleaning fully activated, while many times the pollutants were being blown into the air on the road.