In the scandal of manipulated diesel cars, Volkswagen takes cover wherever possible. Now the car company has to submit letters that burden its former boss Winterkorn – by order of a judge in Stuttgart.
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Ex-VW boss Martin Winterkorn
Wednesday, 28.02.2018
20:11 clock
What did the former Volkswagen boss know? Martin Winterkorn? This question drives plaintiffs and judges in various lawsuits in the 2015 exhaust emissions scandal. Winterkorn has so far rejected any early knowledge, For the first time a court forced the automaker now to submit explosive letters in which Winterkorn was already informed about the violation of exhaust gas regulations for the emission of nitrogen oxide (NOx) in the US – a year before the affair struck.
Fabian Reuschle, judge at the regional court Stuttgart, where about 150 VW small shareholders the group on damages because of price losses by the exhaust affair have sued the publication of several VW documents ordered. The company is still pressing to disclose all required documents – despite judicial order. Instead, the company tries to displace the disagreeable and self-confident judge with a bias request. But two letters to the former boss Winterkorn VW gave the court now. The letters are available to SPIEGEL.
In a note dated May 22, 2014, which Winterkorn received in his “weekend suitcase” at the end of the same month with other important topical issues, the head of the Product Safety Committee and Winterkorn confidant, Bernd Gottweis, warned of “exceeding NOx Emissions “in road tests in the US at the later as manipulated auffllogen diesel cars of the group. He also pointed out there defeat devices with which VW artificially lowered the exhaust gases on the test benches, called Defeat Device in the US.
“Dramatically increased NOx emissions”
Gottweis wrote, “An in-depth explanation for the dramatically increased NOx emissions can not be given to the authorities and it is likely that the authorities will investigate the VW systems to see if Volkswagen has implemented a test recognition in the engine control unit software (so-called defeat device) … “
So far, in his defense, VW retreats to the fact that it is not documented whether Winterkorn also read the letters. However, VW’s lawyers pointed out that he had “taken note” of a second letter in his “weekend suitcase” directly to him and at least “read”: It is the letter of the then chief of quality assurance Frank cloth. He thus forwarded the letter from Gottweis, which was addressed to Tuch, directly to Winterkorn with his mail for the weekend. In his letter, which now had to disclose VW, Tuch refers after the address on the letter of divinity “in the Annex”.
For measurements in the US, the NOx levels of VW diesel models “significantly exceeded (factor 15 to 35),” summarizes Tuch the problem together. He also makes it clear how important the topic is: “A task force has been set up in the development of aggregates.”
VW must provide e-mail correspondence
The Tübingen lawyer Andreas Tilp, who represents the plaintiffs in Stuttgart against VW, sees this as clear evidence that Winterkorn had previously reported on the exhaust gas scandal and the investigations in the US earlier than he had previously. If he had not followed Tuch’s advice to read the annexed documents – and thus the revealing letter from Gottweis – he would have to be a VW top manager Organisationsverschulden be charged.
Group experts doubt that Winterkorn, who had meticulously meticulously focused on technology issues, could have just looked the other way. VW, however, insists that it can not be shown that the former boss had looked at the letters in detail.
Attorney Tilp now hopes that Judge Reuschle the corporation also compels to issue e-mails, whose submission he had ordered. It is about the correspondence between the former and already in the US condemned former US environmental chiefs of VW, Oliver Schmidt, and the former VW-US boss Michael Horn. In it, so the hope of the plaintiff, can the knowledge of the VW executive committee even more clearly read. Still VW refuses, however.