A Next monday, it’s time again. In Wolfsburg, the supervisory board of the VW Group meets for its regular meeting. The topics are wide-ranging. In addition to the current business, it will go above all to the processing of the diesel scandal. In this context, another, unattractive point has now been added, about which the inspectors want to speak about the Chairman of the Supervisory Board Hans Dieter Pötsch: the fraud investigations against the CEO of the subsidiary Audi, Rupert Stadler ,
As the prosecutor informed Munich II this week, she has their long-running investigation against employees of Audi now also extended to Stadler and another acting member of the Audi Board of Management. These are according to information of F.A.Z. around the purchasing director Bernd Martens. As can be heard from Group circles, the Supervisory Board wants to learn from the in-house lawyers, what exactly the investigators have in hand.
A recall Stadler is apparently not up for debate, because still hold the owner families Porsche and Piëch fidelity to him. “Only when the prosecutor officially charges, it could change something,” says a confidant of the families, who do not want to be named.
Stadler is still in the lead
The investigators accuse Stadler fraud and “indirect false certification” before. Specifically, he is said to have failed to ensure after the announcement of the diesel scandal in 2015, that in Europe no longer vehicles with manipulated exhaust gas technology in circulation. It is not about the technical development and the installation of manipulation software in earlier years, but about the handling of the crisis, which was from the point of view of many critics too hesitant and hesitant. Stadler, however, sees himself wrongly pilloryed. He has always emphasized that he always complied with the law.
The 55-year-old manager has been in the discussion for a long time. After all, Audi is the nucleus of the diesel scandal, was developed here but the fraud software for the three-liter diesel engines with which later the brands Volkswagen and Porsche were conspicuous. While the affair cost the former CEO Martin Winterkorn the job, Stadler has been able to hold the Audi top. From the point of view of families, he has proved his worth in previous years. Also the VW CEO Herbert Diess , who succeeded Matthias Müller in Wolfsburg in April, relies on the experienced Stadler for the retreading of the group alongside other managers.
VW misses new corporate culture
Even if official charges are made, that does not automatically mean that Stadler’s time is over at Audi’s top. As the news agency Reuters reported, the supervisory board could still give him the confidence – and for obvious reasons: Whoever would be his successor would have to live with the danger that further exhaust gas manipulation would come to light. This would damage any new leader immediately, the agency quoted a person familiar with the considerations. Stadler is therefore still needed for the time being, even if it could come in the medium term to a change in the Audi top.
VW did not want to comment on the topic on Thursday officially. For all accused initially the presumption of innocence, it was last called in Wolfsburg. There is the topic of ethics and compliance at the moment, especially since the company has agreed to the American authorities willing to let an official supervisor, the so-called monitor in the company.
In consultation with this external expert, the Group has now developed a new initiative called “Together 4 Integrity”, which aims to bring all previous programs under one roof. Linked to this is a concrete catalog of 110 criteria that should make the progress in terms of compliance measurable. Also, the CEO Diess had recently highlighted several times, VW needs a new corporate culture.