VW must pay a billion euro penalty in the exhaust gas scandal. The prosecution’s decision gives hope to the injured motorists and shareholders. The main consequences of the fine.
New cars in the car towers at the VW plant in Wolfsburg
Thursday, 14.06.2018
16:54 clock
The prosecutor Brunswick has a fine in the diesel affair Volkswagen a total of one billion euros rubbed, It has been detected for some time, now see the prosecutor “breach of duty” in the Group occupied. What consequences does the fine have – for VW, for car buyers and for investors? Answers to the most important questions:
What does the billion-dollar fine mean for other victims of the diesel scandal?
The fine, with which the prosecutor Braunschweig VW punished in the Abgasaffäre, leverages in the view of lawyers, the typical arguments of the Group against claims of car owners and investors – and makes him so vulnerable.
“The risk for Volkswagen increases in the court proceedings.” Now VW can no longer argue as before, for the manipulations were employees lower levels responsible and therefore the company would not be responsible, “says Ralf Stoll, lawyer of the law firm Stoll & Sauer, the 35,000 VW victims and 3400 suits filed for them.
If individual employees act incorrectly at low hierarchical levels, it is hardly possible to prosecute a corporation. It is now clear that senior VW managers have violated their oversight responsibilities, Stoll said. Other lawyers from other law firms look the same.
Also, complaints from investors who demand damages from VW because of the price decline of the VW share should therefore have better future opportunities. “This supports our argument that management staff at VW has violated obligations,” says Axel Wegner, lawyer of the law firm Tilp.
Christopher Rother, governor of the US law firm Hausfeld in Berlin, who argues against VW for the legal services provider MyRight and the connected about 15,000 plaintiffs, even sees another gateway, which now opens: “Now the chances for plaintiffs have increased significantly VW and the Regional Court of Braunschweig declare that the diesel manipulations are unfortunate, but legitimate, since the vehicles have been approved, which can no longer be maintained. ”
Rother holds VW in lawsuits before, the Group unlawfully brought its manipulated diesel into circulation – because the group has not announced the shutdown of the exhaust systems in road traffic, in contrast to the test benches. Therefore VW has unlawfully gained approval for these cars.
Is VW still trying to get out of it?
Although the Volkswagen Group accepted the penalty without opposition, the car maker is now apparently trying to mitigate its consequences for further court cases. In his reaction to the punishment, VW again downplayed the circle of those responsible and stated that, according to the investigators’ findings, it had been “in the department of aggregate development”.
The public prosecutor’s office promptly protested that the responsibility for the diesel scandal was not to be found in corporate management: it was not just a department of the company, said prosecutor Klaus Ziehe. “We deliberately did not break it down so far, because we see the VW AG as a whole duty.” In the case of an administrative offense, it concerns the company and not individual persons.
Is the punishment high enough?
Critics complain that Volkswagen will not be punished harder. For example, the repentance from Braunschweig caused more respite for Volkswagens managers. Probably for good reason: A billion euro fine can handle the company without much difficulty, after all, VW alone in 2017 has made more than ten times the profit. Claimants’ lawyers even assume that VW can now keep potential fines low in other countries where it is also being investigated against the Group.
“A penalty in the amount of five million euros – as likely in Wolfsburg, the champagne corks have popped,” says Sebastian Fiedler of the Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter. “That VW should pay an additional 995 million euros of its blundered profit, is nothing more than a matter of course.”
The example shows that it is in Germany finally a real corporate criminal law need, with punishments in appropriate proportion to the treacherous, criticizes Fiedler. If large corporations in Germany could save themselves almost one billion euros through environmental crime and get away with almost impunity, the German legal system would be in a poor position.
The Brunswick prosecutor, however, considers her fine sufficient: “A thousand million euros for an administrative offense is already an announcement, and I assume that this is of course painful,” said prosecutor Ziehe. “If we had the feeling that leads to the general laugh and a transfer from the petty cash, we would have determined a different amount.”
In addition, the Stuttgart prosecutor announced to reserve their own fines claims – which could meet the VW subsidiary Porsche.
What happens to the money?
Even now, the state of Lower Saxony can look forward to the blessing from Wolfsburg. VW has to pay the fine to the country within six weeks. What happens with that is already inspiring the imagination of some politicians in Hanover. “With us there is just a lively debate about it,” said the former Lower Saxony Minister of the Environment and Member of Parliament Stefan Wenzel.
However, the red-black state government abruptly rejected the request concert. “The state government will make a proposal for the use of funds in the context of budgetary discussions,” she said.
It is unlikely, however, that the Lower Saxony can pocket all the money. As additional income of the country it should flow into the state financial equalization, so that only a small part remains in Lower Saxony.
What threatens the auto company yet?
Legally, it looks meanwhile bad for VW: Recently, more and more courts on the course of plaintiffs and condemned the group or its dealers for damages or the withdrawal of manipulated cars. Recently, a first Higher Regional Court ruled that a trader must be responsible for the tampering – which is considered groundbreaking for other lawsuits.
Now it’s all about the ongoing lawsuits by diesel owners and investors, who now see their arguments confirmed. Added to this are the criminal investigations against group managers. An overview:
Investor lawsuits: Because of the price losses caused by the crash in the diesel scandal VW share demand shareholders of the car company ten billion euros.
Buyer’s claims: In addition, there are the complaints of VW owners, according to lawyer Stoll should amount to a required compensation of about one billion euros.
Criminal investigations for market manipulation: prosecutors investigate VW managers on suspicion of market manipulation. Braunschweig wants to decide this year if possible, if indictment is made.
Criminal investigations for the exhaust gas fraud: The manipulation of engine control software and incorrect consumption data are investigators also investigate and want to find out which managers have made this group-wide punishable.
Lawyers also eagerly await the reaction of stakeholders in the VW diesel scandal on the November possible pattern finding suits, On this Thursday, the Bundestag decided the instrument – and thus cleared the way for consumers to join a lawsuit of associations. Possible judgments based on such lawsuits are binding – every consumer who has joined, however, must individually claim their own claim to really get money.