American big business, frustrated in its attempts to limit class action lawsuits at home, is now attempting to derail efforts to give European consumers similar legal redress against corporate misconduct like Volkswagen’s emissions scandal.

Last year, the EU Commission proposed legislation to allow consumers who have been ripped off to join together in “collective actions” in EU courts to get their money back. Policymakers took this step because they were unhappy that VW’s customers in Europe were treated differently from those in the US. While 500,000 American buyers of diesel cars with falsified emissions records used the class action system to collect more than $10bn, 8m Europeans have received almost nothing. In the UK, under the Consumer Rights Act of 2015, more than 50,000 VW customers have joined a group lawsuit to seek compensation that could be worth as much as they paid for their cars. But most other EU citizens do not have the ability to club together. They were offered a software update for their vehicles that does not pay them back for the decreased value of the car or their unwitting contribution to pollution.

But the commission’s proposal has run into a buzzsaw of lobbying by the US Chamber of Commerce. America’s largest business group is seeking to reshape the EU collective action proposal to limit consumers’ rights.