Rupert Stadler
It was only after the court had pointed out an impending prison sentence that the former Audi boss admitted that he had stopped the sale of cars with manipulated emissions values in Europe far too late after the scandal broke in the USA in 2015:
(Photo: dpa)
The Munich Regional Court has sentenced former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler to a suspended prison sentence of one year and nine months. The chamber found him guilty of fraud on Tuesday.
The two co-accused – the former head of engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz and the engineer P. – received suspended sentences for fraud.
These are the first criminal judgments in Germany in the diesel scandal uncovered in 2015, which shook the entire industry and caused billions in damage. Hatz and the engineer P. had confessed to having taken care of the manipulation of diesel engines. In doing so, they complied with emission values on the test stand, but throttled the emission control on the road. Stadler has confessed to stopping the sale of manipulated cars too late.
Wolfgang Hatz
The public prosecutor’s office had demanded a prison sentence of three years and two months without parole for the former head of Audi engine development.
(Photo: dpa)
The suspended sentences are linked to the payment of high fines. Stadler had to pay 1.1 million euros partly to the state treasury and partly to several non-profit organizations, the criminal court ruled.