The German automotive group "Mercedes-Benz" will not face criminal charges in the United States in a long-running scandal over nitrogen oxide emissions, according to information obtained by the German Press Agency (dpa).

The U.S. Department of Justice has closed its investigation, according to a letter sent to the company in March and made available to (dpa). The German business newspaper "Handelsblatt" was the first to report this news.

Renata Jungo Brüngger, from the Integrity and Governance and Sustainability Board, said: "With the decision of the Department of Justice, we are taking another significant step toward legal certainty regarding the various diesel procedures."

She added: "We fully cooperated with the U.S. Department of Justice and made the facts of the case transparent at great cost."

The Stuttgart-based group was accused of deliberately manipulating exhaust emission levels during engine testing, thus concealing the level of emissions under actual driving conditions.

It is reported that excessive values affected around 250,000 diesel vehicles, leading to extensive internal and external investigations since 2016.

In September 2020, the automobile manufacturer avoided a class-action lawsuit by reaching a multi-billion settlement, thus ending proceedings under civil law.