The failed car toll cost the federal government a total of around 305 million euros. This emerges from information from the Federal Ministry of Transport (BMV) in response to inquiries from the Tagesspiegel. The total includes settlement payments and fees for external law firms disclosed for the first time.
From 2020, only drivers from abroad should be asked to pay the car toll, which was officially called the “infrastructure levy”; German owners should be relieved of vehicle tax.
The project failed because the European Court of Justice classified the tax as discriminatory in 2019. The then Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) then terminated the contracts that had already been concluded with the operating companies. They demanded compensation for investments and lost profits. The events were the subject of a parliamentary committee of inquiry.
The largest item in the overall bill is the settlement payments to the operator consortium, which was supposed to technically carry out the toll collection. After the termination, two arbitration proceedings were conducted, one on the contract “Collection of the infrastructure levy” and one on the contract “Automatic control of the infrastructure levy”.
As a result of the arbitration proceedings regarding the survey, according to the Ministry of Transport, the federal government paid the full settlement amount of 243 million euros to autoTicket GmbH in July 2023. In the second arbitration procedure for automatic control, the federal government paid the full settlement amount of around 27 million euros to MTS Maut & Telematik Services GmbH in July 2025. There are “no outstanding amounts,” as the ministry announced.
For the first time, the Federal Ministry of Transport is now providing more detailed information on legal fees: In connection with the “overall infrastructure levy complex”, external legal services were provided by seven law firms, including international commercial law firms, for the arbitration proceedings, for legal advice in an administrative law procedure and for the investigative committee.
The clients included PricewaterhouseCoopers Legal AG Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Greenberg Traurig LLP. The total order value would have amounted to around 34.5 million euros. “Around 21 million euros” were paid to Orrick alone, who supported the ministry in the arbitration proceedings.
The Berlin law firm Krause & Colleagues, which was hired by the ministry to assist witnesses from the ministry in the investigative committee, including the then minister Scheuer, received an “amount in the lower six-figure euro range”. Scheuer and the former State Secretary Gerhard Schulz are currently having to answer before the Berlin district court in a trial for making unsworn false statements in the committee. Both deny the allegations.
Scheuer and Schulz are now also being defended in their criminal proceedings by the Berlin law firm Krause. It is currently unclear whether the costs for this will be co-financed by the Ministry of Transport in accordance with the legal protection guidelines for federal employees. “The Federal Ministry of Transport has not granted any loans in the current legislative period and does not currently see any need to do so,” it says. Further information would not be provided due to the protection of personal data.
The federal government had refused to provide public information on specific costs for law firms, citing protected company and business secrets. However, following a lawsuit by the Tagesspiegel, the Federal Administrative Court ruled last year in a case against the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) that such a need for protection only exists if “concrete conclusions about the agreed fee conditions and thus the law firm's calculation bases are possible”. When it comes to questions about the use of tax funds, “increased publicity is important in favor of the interest in information.”
