The complaint, seeking up to $46 billion in penalties for Clean Air Act violations, [ 301 ] alleged that Volkswagen equipped certain 2.0 and 3.0-litre diesel-engine vehicles with emissions cheating software, causing NO x pollution to exceed EPA's standards during normal driving conditions. It further claimed that Volkswagen entities provided misleading information and that material omissions impeded and obstructed "efforts to learn the truth about the (excess) emissions". [ 301 ] while "so far recall discussions with the company have not produced an acceptable way forward". [ 142 ] [ 302 ] On 9 January 2016, US officials criticized Volkswagen for citing German law in order to withhold documents from a group of states investigating the company's actions. Schneiderman also complained over Volkswagen's slowness in producing documents from its US files, claiming the company "has sought to delay responses until it completes its 'independent investigation' several months from now". [ 301 ]