The US Justice has issued arrest warrants for Martin Winterkorn. But the former VW boss threaten not only criminal consequences – the Group also checks according to a media report financial claims against the ex-manager.
Martin Winterkorn (archive)
Saturday, 05.05.2018
18:26
For the former VW boss Martin Winterkorn The consequences of the diesel scandal are becoming more and more threatening. after the US Attorney’s office in Detroit The former top manager was accused of his role in the exhaust gas manipulation, issued the US judiciary a little later, a warrant for the former top manager. Also in Germany is determined for some time by the Braunschweig prosecutor against Winterkorn.
Winterkorn threaten not only criminal consequences, but also the loss of his assets. Of the VW– Check him for the billions of damages incurred by the diesel scandal The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (“FAS”) reports that it is liable and appeals to Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch.
In the environment of the supervisory board already numbers circulated, how much of Winterkorn can be fetched – that reach up to a billion euro. Winter grain have loud loud “FAS” at VW earned more than 100 million euros and pension claims of almost 30 million euros. “This money would be completely gone in extreme cases,” said the Berlin law professor Gregor Bachmann the newspaper.
Public prosecutor: procedure “in sight of the finish line”
In the US winter grain is Conspiracy to deceive the authorities in the exhaust gas manipulation accused. US Attorney General and Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke of a system of deception headed by VW. The US investigators assume that Winterkorn had been informed in May 2014 about irregularities in diesel exhaust emissions. Winterkorn has always denied that.
In Germany, according to the prosecutor Braunschweig, the investigation against Winterkorn and 38 other accused on the finish line. In the summer of their defenders should be granted access to the file, said the spokesman for the prosecutor, prosecutor Klaus Ziehe, the “FAS”.
The indictment and the arrest warrant against Winterkorn did not surprise him: “because the factual representations mentioned therein are already known to us – regardless of any other evaluation – in larger parts from our own investigations”.
He defended himself against the accusation of abduction. In Germany, in contrast to the US legal system, the public prosecutor’s office “can never sue individuals as long as the entire investigative complex has not been closed and the accused have been granted a legal hearing.”
Lühmann (SPD): Managers would have to be punished for mistakes
The SPD traffic expert Kirsten Lühmann expects criminal consequences for Winterkorn in Germany. She told the Deutschlandfunk: When Winterkorn testified at the beginning of 2017 in the Bundestag investigative committee that he had known nothing of all that had already believed him in the hall hardly anyone. “But we could not compete proof.” The fact that the judiciary has acted in the USA, but not in Germany, has to do with the different legal systems.
Lühmann expects that the German judiciary will act as soon as it has collected all the evidence. It was correct that the German investigators examined for a long time, to be sure that it was not only for an indictment, but also for a conviction. Nothing would be more embarrassing than opening a case under pressure from the public, and then the evidence would not suffice – with the consequence that the case would be closed.
Lühmann pleaded for managers to be held more criminally responsible in such cases as the diesel exhaust scandal. If the CSU deputy Georg Nüßlein demand such a thing, he is right. These managers were given a lot of money, arguing that they were responsible. If so, then they would have to stand up for mistakes and be punished.
Hesse and Baden-Württemberg demand high fines
The chairman of the transport committee of the Bundestag, Cem Özdemir, welcomed the accusation: “The US justice pursues the Abgasbetrügereien up to the highest board room – well so, because those are a mess at the expense of consumers and the environment,” said the Green politician of “Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung”.
In contrast, the car owners in Germany, the stupid without group law, says Özdemir. “Here comes the bosses with a few software updates, made possible by the duck-you attitude of the supposedly tough CSU guys from the Department of Transportation.” He argued that car companies should retrofit diesel vehicles at their expense
The two federal states of Hesse and Baden-Württemberg call for SPIEGEL information from Federal Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) to impose heavy fines on car companies in connection with the diesel exhaust scandal. Such penalties could amount to billions. The revenue from these fines will help the two countries to finance the retrofitting of diesel cars. Scheuer rejects hardware retrofits so far: they are too expensive.
Note: In an earlier version of the text, we wrote that Winterkorn earns more than 100 billion euros at VW and has pension claims of just under 30 billion euros. However, these are millions. We corrected the numbers.