Rupert Stadler
The former Audi CEO can not count on the relief at the VW shareholder meeting.
(Photo: AP)
DüsseldorfThe arrest of the former Audi-Vorstandsvorsitzenden Rupert Stadler busy the Volkswagen Group also at the upcoming Annual General Meeting in May. The 56-year-old will not be relieved at the shareholders’ meeting, unlike the other members of the Group Executive Board for 2018. That’s from the Invitation to the next VW shareholder meeting in Berlin out.
“The Supervisory Board and the Executive Board propose that the discharge of the member of the Executive Board, Rupert Stadler, in office 2018, be postponed for the 2018 financial year due to ongoing investigations into the diesel issue and all remaining members of the Executive Board responsible for the financial year 2018 for the 2018 financial year literally in the invitation to the shareholder meeting.
The fact that a board is refused discharge is an absolute exception for listed German companies. As a rule, relieving the top management is a routine matter at the shareholder meetings of large corporations. On the VWAGM in 2016, the state of Lower Saxony already had the former CEO Martin Winterkorn and the former VW brand manager Herbert Diess the discharge because of the possible involvement in the diesel affair denied and abstained.
At Stadler, Volkswagen is responding to the special situation in connection with the diesel affair. By the former Audi-Vorstandsvorsitzenden the discharge is initially denied, the Group holds possible claims for damages open. As the Management Board and the Supervisory Board are behind this proposal, the Annual General Meeting in May will very definitely vote against the discharge of Rupert Stadler. Alone the families Porsche and Piëch own a majority of 53 percent of the shares in the shareholders’ meeting.
Current club events
The criminal investigation the Munich prosecutor against the longtime Audi chief are still not completed. From legal circles recently said that Stadler probably have to expect later this year with an indictment for his alleged involvement in the diesel affair.
Volkswagen: Volkswagen separates from Audi CEO Stadler – reserves compensation but one
Rupert Stadler was arrested last June and spent several months in custody. The VW group responded to it and ended the contractual relationship with Stadler in October, The automanager then left the company. As head of Audi, Stadler was also a member of the Volkswagen Group Executive Board. The Munich public prosecutor’s office claims Stadler and other Audi managers that they had hindered a quick investigation of the diesel scandal after the detection in late 2015. Audi had initially stated that the Ingolstadt premium daughter was not involved in the affair, but later had to admit manipulation.
New elections to the Supervisory Board of the Group are also scheduled for the VW shareholder meeting. It will also come to a peculiarity: Normally, at the age of 75, supervisory board members should leave the supervisory board at Volkswagen. But with Hans Michel Piëch, now 77 years old, makes the Wolfsburg carmaker an exception.
Hans Michel Piëch has “special experience and knowledge in the fields of business of the company, which he believes the Supervisory Board will continue to bring in the interests and well-being of the company,” is the reasoning in the invitation to the Annual General Meeting.
Together with his cousin Wolfgang Porsche Piëch is one of the most important family representatives on the Volkswagen Supervisory Board. The Viennese lawyer is indirectly also the largest single shareholder of VW. After the departure of his brother and long-time chairman of the board and supervisory board Ferdinand, the 77-year-old is now the key speaker of the Piëch side at Volkswagen.
By electing Hans Michel Piëch to the Supervisory Board again, contrary to the internal requirements, the third generation of the PorschePièch family, that she is not yet thinking about retiring from the company. Although representatives of the younger fourth generation are already represented in Volkswagen and Group committees, they have not yet been given the key shifters.
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