In the diesel affair, the prosecution has imposed a bill worth billions against VW. But the fine is too low. It finally needs an effective corporate criminal law in Germany.
VW plant in Wolfsburg
Thursday, 14.06.2018
18:05 clock
Volkswagen has to pay a billion euros fine, so at least headline a variety of newspapers and online sites after the Determination of the sentence by the prosecutor Braunschweig in the diesel affair.
In Wolfsburg you should knock on your thighs. For what at first appears as a blue letter, is the oft-cited bird’s shit. A hefty 995 million euros of the sentence are due to revenue through economic benefits – money so, the Volkswagen someday once appropriated by the exhaust gas manipulation unauthorized. The actual fine beats with only five million euros to book, which accounts for about half a thousandth of the corporate profit last year.
University of St. Gallen
Thomas Beschorner, born in 1970, is Professor of Business Ethics and Director of the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St. Gallen. He is the author of numerous professional publications in the field of economic and business ethics. He is u.a. Editor of the book “Management and Responsibility before and After the 90 Minutes: Economic and Social Action in Professional Football”.
Imagine, for example, that the fine for wrong parking would be taxed at only 50 cents and the ticket at the ticket machine cost two euros per hour. What kind of behavior would we suspect from motorists? I agree! However, this comparison reflects the logic of many trading companies: punishment times the probability of discovery compared to the potential economic advantage. The current legal regulations are an incentive to cheat!
The penalty for penalties for corporate violations is not accidental but systemic. In Germany, there is no corporate criminal law. Offenses can only be punished as a misdemeanor, as well as wrong parking. The maximum penalty is ten million euros, so that was not even exhausted at Volkswagen, because the prosecutor responsible probably only from a negligent and not deliberate offense by the VW Group emanates.
For some years there have been discussions about the introduction of corporate criminal law in Germany. The North Rhine-Westphalian provincial government had already launched a bill in 2013, but it has silted up. And also at federal level there was a corresponding project for the past legislative period. But more than a few sentences in the coalition agreement were not.
Two-digit billions would be possible instead of five million
There are various good proposals for corporate criminal law, which provide for a coupling of the penalty in turnover (penalty of 15 percent of the annual turnover) or profit (penalty in the amount of a total annual profit). Some drafts also stipulate that companies may even be liquidated and deleted from the commercial register in the event of repeated serious offenses. Then the shop would be shut down.
If such a law already existed today, Volkswagen (11.4 billion profit and 230.7 billion sales in 2017; a double record!) in the diesel gates with a fine in the double-digit billion range – instead of five million. That would hurt. And it should.
In the current coalition agreement the introduction of corporate criminal law is again listed. Will something be doing this time? In any case, there are already some good and mature concept proposals for practical implementation.