US Attorney General Sessions accompanies the indictment of Martin Winterkorn with pithy words. The ex-VW boss is accused of conspiracy to fraud because of the diesel scandal – he would pay for it “a high price”.
Ex-Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn
Friday, 04.05.2018
08:25 clock
The processing of the VW exhaust scandal by the criminal justice system has reached the top level of the group for the first time – and there the absolute top: The former CEO Martin Winterkorn has been indicted in the US because of the manipulated exhaust emissions in diesel cars. The 70-year-old is accused, according to indictment, including conspiracy to cheat the United States.
The size of the allegations is also evident from US Secretary of Justice Jeff Sessions speaking out in person – with clear words: “Anyone who tries to cheat the United States will pay a heavy price,” warned Sessions. The prosecution shows that the “conspiracy” to circumvent US laws has stretched “all the way to the top of the enterprise,” the Minister of Justice said.
The indictment had already been filed in March but became known only now, All in all, the previous VW boss in the indictment will be charged with legal violations in four points. In addition to backing the US authorities, they refer to the alleged fraudulent use of telecommunications equipment.
Winterkorn’s lawyer Felix Dörr was surprised by the step of the US judiciary. “We are surprised at the charges,” he tells the Handelsblatt newspaper. The indictment is noted. “We will clarify the further procedure.”
Germany does not deliver
Winterkorn is not the only one accused – together with him five other VW managers were charged. They all “deliberately and deliberately committed fraud” to circumvent US emissions legislation, the indictment said. The carmaker announced that it continues to cooperate fully with the US Department of Justice in relation to acts of individuals. However, it was not appropriate to comment on individual cases.
For the time being, the charge has only limited immediate effects for Winterkorn – the ex-manager is currently not in the US, and Germany is not delivering his citizens.
The long-standing Volkswagen boss Winterkorn had resigned in September 2015 shortly after the announcement of the diesel scandal from the post at the head of the car company. Since then he has repeatedly stated that he did not learn of the millionfold emissions manipulation until the month of his resignation. He also repeated this during his interrogation by the Committee of Inquiry of the Bundestag in January 2017.
Finally understandable
In the current US indictment, on the other hand, Winterkorn is now accused of being informed in an internal memo in May 2014 about the use of software for manipulating the measured values of nitrogen oxides. At a crisis meeting of the top management at the Wolfsburg headquarters in July 2015, he was again confronted with facts on the trickery. Despite the indications by his employees Winterkorn both times decided to continue the fraud.
High prison sentences in the US for VW managers
Also in Germany is determined against winter grain, by the prosecutor Braunschweig. It concerns the suspicion of the fraud and the market manipulation – concretely the charge to have informed the investors too late over the exhaust gas manipulation. When the then VW boss was demonstrably informed, is therefore crucial for the prosecutor as well as plaintive VW equity investors. Because Volkswagen informed only on 22 September 2015 by compulsory release over first provisions because of the law offense in the USA. This became known on 18 September, shortly thereafter broke the price of the share.
VW had to pay billions of dollars in criminal and settlement payments because of the scandal in the United States. The US judiciary had previously filed criminal charges against eight incumbent and former employees of the VW Group. Two of them have already become several years imprisonment and high fines.