In the VW scandal staging the US investigators as reconnaissance. They can because the German judiciary acts so restrained: The prosecutor hesitates too long with a charge of fraud.
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Ex-VW boss Martin Winterkorn
Friday, 04.05.2018
19:41 clock
The diesel affair surrounding manipulated Volkswagen cars stinks many people in Germany. Millions of cars emit far more toxic nitric oxide than the Wolfsburg car company made its customers believe. So far, especially the car buyers had to pay for it, whose cars lose value. This could change now.
Almost three years after the flare-up of the exhaust gas scandal, it’s time for the once-strongest corporate manager to go to the collar, former VW boss Martin Winterkorn – not in his home market Germany, but in the US.
Fraud and conspiracy accuse the US Department of Justice Winterkorn in court. “The indictment published today contains allegations that cheating Volkswagens plan to the very top of the company,” said US Attorney General Jeff Sessions. These are serious allegations, “and we will pursue them with all the harshness of the law”.
This hardships would also be desired elsewhere by the victims of the German judiciary. “Attention to note” takes the prosecutor Brunswick, the indictment in the US, it says there. Although investigate the prosecutors in the home of Volkswagen also, even against Winterkorn. But although there is more and more evidence that the former CEO must have achieved early information about the manipulations, it is enough prosecutors in this country so far to the indictment.
One foot in jail? Are you kidding me? Are you serious when you say that!
As a matter of course called the now also detached VW CEO Matthias Müller recently in SPIEGEL as a reason for its high salary the risk, which one carries as a company boss: “as such one stands always with one foot in the prison.” His statement does not coincide with reality. Corruption scandals and kickbacks, infidelity and bribery, fraud as in the case of Volkswagen – everything German large corporations have already achieved. But their bosses almost never had to pay for it.
Exceptions can only be found where the investigation files are delivered virtually free house and are barely wegzudiskutieren: Because the insolvency administrator of the retail group Arcandor revealed how his former boss Thomas Middelhoff private expenses paid by the company, the prosecutor’s office took up investigations, and the top Manager hid behind bars in 2014 for three years.
Otherwise, it’s straight CEOs often easy to steal responsibility. They are usually not as close to the operational business as entrepreneurs in smaller companies. In doubt, it is said, they were not properly informed by their subordinates, and if they did, they just did not listen or read properly. With this explanation, Winterkorn and his lawyers also meet evidence that he is already well before the diesel scandal hit in September 2015 Information about the manipulations must have reached.
Offenders as victims?
In the meantime, it has since been proven that in May 2015, Winterkorn received information from his close trust in Bernd Gottweis about defeat devices in his “weekend suitcase” with other important topical matters. With these facilities, VW artificially lowered exhaust emissions on the test stands. In addition, there is material on a meeting of Winterkorn with VW engineers on July 27, 2015, in which he was informed about the situation in the US. It was apparently explained how VW deceived the US authorities and what consequences threatened.
VW plant in Wolfsburg
VW retreats to the position, it is not documented if Winterkorn has read the letters as well. Winterkorn itself does not want to have taken any evidence of the manipulation from the meeting in July 2015.
As a victim of disinformation, the former father of VW presented to the Bundestag Committee of Inquiry in January last year. “It is hard to understand why I was not informed early and clearly on the measurement problems,” he said there. What happened, make him angry, too.
After flying up the diesel fraud in 2015, Winterkorn even said that he could remain in office without prejudice, as if he did not have any responsibility as CEO for what was going on in his company. Only when the public pressure became too big after some time, he had to resign.
Americans have the evidence
The US Department of Justice does not confuse the claimed ignorance of the former VW sizes apparently. It sounds like mockery that the Americans thank the German law enforcement agencies for their support. The US colleagues were the evidence sufficient to go to court – the supporting Germans are holding back meanwhile.
The German authority determined against 49 allegedly at the exhaust gas scandal parties involved because of exhaust emissions and incorrect emission and consumption information. Against Winter grain, the investigations are also based on suspicion of market manipulation, as well as against the new VW CEO Herbert Diess and Supervisory Board Chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch. The managers deny the allegations. The prosecutors in Braunschweig do not expect that their fraud investigations in the exhaust gas scandal will even be completed this year.
While the Germans are procrastinating, the Americans can stage themselves with the VW case as enlightener. “If you try to cheat the United States, you will pay a heavy price,” threatened Justice Secretary Sessions. It is probably no coincidence that the information about the indictment was distributed on Thursday evening – just at the end of the VW Annual General Meeting in Berlin.
The exhaust fraud was uncovered in America, although the Federal Ministry of Transport and the Federal Motor Transport Authority many years earlier had many indications of inconsistencies in the exhaust emissions. Now, the US is still duping Germany with its swift and consistent punishment of fraud.