Volkswagen executives in the United States have promised restitution within a month for American franchise dealers damaged by the carmaker’s diesel scandal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing dealers.
A senior American executive from Volkswagen made the pledge at a meeting on Friday with over 150 dealers from the northeast at a hotel in New Jersey, the WSJ said, citing dealers that met with the company.
The meeting was reported to be the first in a series of similar gatherings that the German automobile maker is having to inform dealers about how it plans to roll out a $15 billion settlement related to the scandal.
(For more on Dieselgate, read Fortune‘s feature Inside Volkswagen’s Emission’s Scandal)
The program affects nearly 500,000 tainted diesel vehicles on the road and another 12,000 that dealers are unable to sell, according to the report.