A federal judge has approved Volkswagen's $14.7 billion settlement over the carmaker's vehicle emissions scandal.

Under the terms of the deal, Volkswagen agrees to work with U.S. car owners to either buy back or repair vehicles involved in the scandal. That means paying as much as $10.033 billion to owners. In addition, the carmaker has come to an agreement with the United States under which it will pay nearly $5 million in environmental remediation.

Volkswagen says that the claims process for arranging buybacks or modifications has now begun, and that documents already submitted by owners are being reviewed.

The cars in question were sold as being "green" diesel vehicles with low emissions, but in fact had been set up to drive differently during emissions tests to appear to have lower emissions than they did at other times.

As previously reported, the emissions scandal involves some Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles, in both 2.0- and 3.0-liter diesel engine sizes, that were released from 2009 to 2016. (See the EPA's guide.)

This settlement covers only 2.0-liter engines in VW and Audi cars.