Former VW boss Matthias Müller (70) is also scheduled to testify as a witness in the model trial of investors on the VW diesel affair this Wednesday. Müller took over the top job at VW after the emissions scandal became known on September 25, 2015, after then-CEO Martin Winterkorn (76) resigned from his position was. Müller’s time at the top of Volkswagen ended in 2018 and he was succeeded by Herbert Diess (65). A few weeks ago he was the first former company boss to testify before the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court denied any guilt.
The 3rd Civil Senate of the Higher Regional Court has been negotiating since 2018 on a model lawsuit brought by the Sparkasse fund company Deka Investment due to price losses suffered by the VW company.Emissions scandal. As the first witness had The court heard ex-VW board member Horst Neumann (74) in September 2023. The plaintiffs – mostly institutional investors – accuse Volkswagen and the defendant Porsche Holding of keeping the information about “Dieselgate” secret for a long time, thereby causing them to lose the value of their shares. Volkswagen counters this by saying that the price relevance only became apparent through the publication of the EPA on September 18, 2015.
The Higher Regional Court had decided in July to question a total of 86 witnessesin order to obtain information about what happened before the scandal became known. However, many of the witnesses invoke the right to refuse to testify. This interim status shows who played the main roles in the diesel affair, who still faces criminal consequences and who doesn’t:
Rupert Stadler
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In the end there was a deal: Ex-Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was the first former VW board member to admit wrongdoing in the diesel scandal
Photo: MATTHIAS SCHRADER / AFP
After almost 170 days of trial, the time had come: Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler (60) fought his way into a deal with the court and public prosecutor in the fraud trial due to manipulated emissions values, after denying the allegations for years. Stadler said he accepted that vehicles had been manipulated and that buyers had been harmed as a result in May last year during the consultation process in Munich. The ex-Audi boss was the first former VW Group board member to admit wrongdoing in the diesel scandal.
In June 2023 The court convicted Stadler of fraud. He received a suspended sentence of one year and nine months; judge Stefan Weickert had previously given him the prospect of a suspended sentence if he confessed. Another condition of the deal was that the ex-Audi boss pays 1.1 million euros. In July 2023 it became known that Stadler, together with his two co-defendants Giovanni Pamio and Wolfgang Hatz (64), has lodged an appeal against the judgment of the Munich Regional Court.
The trial at the Munich Regional Court is one of the most prominent legal proceedings to deal with the diesel scandal at the car manufacturer Volkswagen and its subsidiary Audi. In 2015 it was revealed that the companies had manipulated emissions values millions of times. In addition to Stadler, three other former Audi managers were charged in Munich, The process has been running since September 2020. Another location in the so-called “Dieselgate” is Braunschweig, where five former high-ranking managers of the Volkswagen Group have been on trial since September 2021.
Giovanni Pamio
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Engine developer: Giovanni Pamio was the first to admit joint responsibility for the exhaust gas manipulations in the Munich trial
Photo:
Willi Schneider / People Picture
A central figure in the diesel scandal is the former Audi engine developer Giovanni Pamio, who sat in the dock in Munich along with Stadler and the former Audi engine boss Hatz. According to the indictment, Pamio, as head of the engine development department in Neckarsulm, helped arrange for the software of diesel engines to be manipulated. He demanded “intelligent solutions” from employees in order to pass emissions tests and in 2008 instructed them to install software that recognized tests. Pamio was the first of the three defendants to admit to manipulating engines.
Under pressure from the court, which had threatened a prison sentence, the engineer admitted at the beginning of April that he knew that the so-called defeat devices could not comply with the law. During the trial, Pamio was sentenced to a suspended sentence of one year and nine months and 50,000 euros. The case against the fourth defendant, an engineer, was dropped against a fine of 25,000 euros. In July 2023 it became known that Pamio, together with his two co-defendants Stadler and Hatz, had surprisingly filed an appeal.
Wolfgang Hatz
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Temporarily responsible for engine development throughout the VW Group: After Pamio’s confession, Wolfgang Hatz also admitted to having initiated the software
Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE / AFP
Pamio’s confession apparently continued the former head of engine development in the VW Group and Porsche development director Wolfgang Hatz came under pressure a little later confessedto have arranged for the installation of the banned control software with two other employees. When installing the software, Hatz had his defense attorney explain that he “recognized and accepted” that it would be considered an inadmissible defeat device in Germany and that it could violate the law applicable there in the USA.
Hatz was later sentenced to two years probation and a fine of 400,000 euros. However, the public prosecutor does not want to let the verdict against Hatz rest. She appealed against it. Unlike Stadler and Pamio, she fought against Hatz not having to go to prison either. The prosecution had demanded a prison sentence of three years and two months for the 64-year-old. Hatz had been in custody in Stadelheim for nine months until June 2018.
Martin Winterkorn
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Former VW boss: Martin Winterkorn has to go back to court
Photo: fossiphoto / imago
The most prominent figure in the diesel affair is former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn (76), who handed over management of Audi to Stadler in 2007 and moved to the top management of the company. The Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office indicted the ex-VW boss in 2019 along with four other VW managers. But due to Winterkorn’s health, his trial was separated and has been on hold since 2021. The process had previously had to be postponed several times due to the corona pandemic. At the end of December 2023, however, it became known that the Braunschweig Regional Court reopens the proceedings on suspicion of market manipulation. It was initially unclear when the process would begin.
The public prosecutor’s office accuses Winterkorn of having been informed about the emissions manipulation in the USA by May 2014 at the latest, but of not having stopped the sale of the vehicles or the unfair advertising of the supposedly clean diesel. Winterkorn rejects the allegations. So far he has only had to pay damages amounting to 11.2 million euros to VW.
Winterkorn is also scheduled to testify in the investor trial in mid-February; according to the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, the former VW boss is said to have agreed to appear on February 14th and 15th.
Heinz-Jakob Neußer
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Former VW development boss: Heinz-Jakob Neußer is said to have even initiated an expansion of the software
Photo: Friso Gentsch / Volkswagen / dpa / picture alliance
In addition to Winterkorn, a high-ranking defendant in Braunschweig is the former VW brand executive Heinz-Jakob Neußer (64). The former head of development has to answer in court for commercial and gang fraud. The public prosecutor’s office accuses Neußer of having known about the manipulation shortly after he took over as chief engine developer in October 2011, but of not having stopped it, but of having been responsible for the continued use of the shutdown software.
Neußer is even said to have initiated an expansion of the software, which ensured that the vehicle recognized whether it was driving in the laboratory or on the road based on the steering angle. According to witnesses, Neußer is also said to have deliberately covered up the manipulations. So far, like his co-defendants, he has denied the allegations, so the proceedings are dragging on. With the confessions from Hatz and Stadler in Munich, things could now be moving. It is conceivable that defendants from the Munich trial could be called as witnesses in Braunschweig. VW terminated Neußer without notice in 2018. The ex-head of development at VW defended himself against a lawsuit failed however.
Ulrich Hackenberg
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Former Audi chief developer: Ulrich Hackenberg is said to have known about excessive emissions limits at VW as early as 2008
Photo: REBECCA COOK / REUTERS
Another trial against Audi managers is likely to start soon in Munich, which will be directed against, among other things, one of the central figures in the development at VW and Audi at the time: Ulrich Hackenberg (73). In the summer of 2020 the The public prosecutor’s office filed an indictment against the former Audi chief developer. Hackenberg is one of Winterkorn’s closest confidants. The public prosecutor is convinced that he knew about excessive emissions limits at Volkswagen as early as 2008 and about the problems with emissions control at Audi in November 2013.
Hackenberg is said to have later ordered that there should be no recall of the model series already on the market in order to convert them into compliance with the law. The former board member claims that he only found out about the manipulations in 2015. VW had already demanded compensation from him. But Hackenberg refused a settlement payment; he sees himself as innocent.
Hans Dieter Pötsch and Herbert Diess
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Proceedings discontinued: Hans Dieter Pötsch and ex-VW boss Herbert Diess were charged with market manipulation
Photo: Swen Pförtner/dpa
The public prosecutor’s office did not bring charges against Volkswagen supervisory board chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch (72) and former CEO Herbert Diess (65). The proceedings against the two were discontinued subject to conditions, as manager magazine exclusively reported in May 2020
. They each paid 4.5 million euros and did not have to appear in court. The Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office had accused them of deliberately informing the financial markets too late about the impending billion-dollar fines. Pötsch and Diess denied this. Although they had learned about the investigations by the US environmental authorities in the previous months, they could not have imagined the magnitude of the punishment. Apparently the responsible judges in Braunschweig had doubts as to whether the evidence from the public prosecutor’s office was sufficient for a guilty verdict – and the case was dismissed in return for a payment of money.
In January Diess was the first former VW boss to testify as a witness – and rejected responsibility. Until recently, Diess said before the Higher Regional Court in Braunschweig that he did not believe it was possible that there could be sanctions for excessive emissions. It was clear to him shortly after joining the company that there was a problem with some of the engines in the company USA give. He was particularly concerned about getting a new engine approved. However, he was confident that there would be a solution with the authorities.
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Oliver Schmidt
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Pawn sacrifice: Oliver Schmidt spent four years in prison in the USA
Photo: Mandi Wright / imago images/ZUMA Wire
A VW manager who only played a minor role in the diesel scandal but still received a heavy fine is Oliver Schmidt (55). He neither commissioned nor built the defeat devices. However, it later emerged that he had not correctly informed the US authorities about the manipulation. At the end of 2016 he made the fatal mistake of traveling to the USA for a Christmas vacation. Shortly before the return flight, FBI officers arrested him in the airport bathroom in Miami. Schmidt spent almost four years in US prison – longer than any other defendant in the diesel affair.