The regional court in Stuttgart makes shareholders of VW and Porsche hope for damages – they could have been deceived earlier. In the procedure also Minister of Transport Scheuer is to be loaded as a witness.
Andreas Scheuer (CSU)
Thursday, 07.06.2018
18:02 clock
Volkswagen and Porsche shareholders achieved a stage win in the diesel affair. According to SPIEGEL information, Fabian Richter Reuschle, chairman of the district court of Stuttgart, considers it possible that Porsche and VW already deceived and damaged their shareholders in 2010. If the preliminary assessment is confirmed in the court proceedings, investors’ chances of obtaining damages increase significantly, pressure on the Volkswagen Group, ex-chief Martin Winterkorn, Audi CEO Rupert Stadler and other leading executives increases.
Investors represented by the law firms Tilp and Broich had sued Porsche SE for damages in several proceedings before the Regional Court of Stuttgart. Parallel to this, a test case was pending against VW in Braunschweig. Porsche SE, which is controlled by the Porsche and Piëch families, holds the majority of the voting rights in VW. In the matter in both cases, the issue of exhaust emissions and the question of whether investors are entitled to damages, because they have suffered through the diesel fraud in the VW Group losses.
Among other things, it depends on when the management at VW and Porsche knew about the exhaust gas manipulation and misled investors about possible claims for damages. So far, the Stuttgart district court had assumed that the disinformation began at the earliest in May 2014. At that time, two VW employees had informed ex-chief Winterkorn that permissible emissions levels in the US were exceeded many times over, and also pointed to a possibly illegal shutdown device.
In one of the proceedings in Stuttgart, Judge Reuschle has now stated in a pleading that he considers a deception to be possible much earlier. Thus VW indicated in the annual report for 2009 that diesel engines of the group already fulfilled the emission standard euro-6. In fact, however, the measured values were distorted by impermissible defeat devices. Porsche had adopted the information unchanged and published in November 2010. This could constitute “immoral damage” to investors, argues the judge.
Witnesses were instructed to bring explosive documents
“This significant expansion of the possible liability period is not only for the affected Porsche investors a very gratifying development,” said lawyer Andreas Tilp the SPIEGEL. Thousands of VW investors have to be awarded on this basis even more compensation for immoral injury.
Judge Reuschle now wants to be examined in a complex process, who knew when VW about diesel manipulation and defeat devices know. The court has ordered 28 witnesses to testify in Stuttgart on 12 September. Winterkorn should appear as well as Audi CEO Stadler as well as in Munich in pre-trial detention ex-manager Wolfgang Hatz. Judge Reuschle has also asked for administrative assistance from the United States to question the detained there former VW employees James Liang and Oliver Schmidt.
In addition, the court has applied to the President of the Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble, for an exemption for the former Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer and incumbent Andreas Scheuer (both CSU), who was Secretary of State in Ramsauer’s time. The Ministry of Transport should have been informed according to the plaintiffs 2011 by the German environmental aid on possible violations of emission standards and defeat devices.
More about the diesel debate
The delicacy of the District Court’s appeal is also that some witnesses have been ordered to bring explosive documents that could incriminate the former VW leadership. Among others, Bosch CEO Volkmar Denner and his predecessor Franz Fehrenbach are said to testify. Denner was ordered to bring a letter in which Bosch employees asked for a waiver of liability by VW in the diesel affair.
The Bosch managers and invited VW employees should also provide extensive information via e-mail correspondence and internal meetings that could bring new insights into the affair. Also the role of Bosch could become more transparent in the process, the public prosecutor’s office Stuttgart determined also against the automotive supplier, who had supplied the engine control software for diesel models of all German manufacturers.