Five major car manufacturers go on trial at London's High Court on Monday in the latest chapter of the dieselgate emissions scandal that has rocked the global car industry for a decade.

The High Court will decide whether systems installed in Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot-Citroen, Renault and Nissan diesel vehicles were designed to cheat clean air laws.

The five lead defendants deny the accusations.

The huge trial will have ramifications for other manufacturers, potentially paving the way for "billions of pounds" in compensation, said Martyn Day, lawyer at Leigh Day representing the claimants.

The dieselgate scandal first erupted in September 2015, when German automaker Volkswagen was found to have cheated pollution tests by installing so-called defeat devices to reduce nitrogen oxide reading

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