Volkswagen in USA
A US flag is reflected in the logo and grille of a Volkswagen vehicle. The Wolfsburger group has new trouble with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
DüsseldorfDer Volkswagen Group should be an investigation in the United States in connection with the sale of bonds and other securities (“ABS”, asset-backed securities) on the American financial market. The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claims this in new court documents filed by the agency on Tuesday night in a federal court in San Francisco.
The reason is the complaint, the SEC had already filed against Volkswagen in the spring, The VW group had violated US securities regulations, because the German automaker’s investors are not timely about the threat of billions in connection with the diesel affair informed.
Thus, this new US lawsuit is similar to the German mass action under the Capital Investor Model Procedure Act (KapMuG) before the Brunswick Higher Regional Court, in which VW shareholders claim a billions in damages, The prosecutor Braunschweig also investigates against Volkswagen boards on suspicion of market manipulation, because they may have informed too late about the billions of dollars. VW rejects the allegations.
The American exchange Right after the start of the new US lawsuit in the spring, SEC heard a charge that they filed the lawsuit way too late. The federal court in San Francisco also wanted to know from the SEC officials why they had spent more than two years investigating their own case.
Already in January 2017, the VW Group had agreed with the US Department of Justice and the US Department of Justice on a settlement. All criminal lawsuits against the Volkswagen Group in the United States were discontinued for more than $ 4 billion in payment and other conditions. However, individual managers are expressly excluded from this.
With the new documents submitted on the night of Tuesday, the SEC complies with the US Court’s request to justify the long delays in its ongoing investigation. The SEC is responsible for the VW Group in the first place.
Two million pages of investigation files
On the side of Volkswagen, there have been “major delays in the provision of documents and other information” since the start of investigations in September 2015. In addition, it had been an extremely costly process for the American stock market supervision. Two million pages of investigation files were worked through and 20 witnesses were heard.
The SEC claims that it was a completely new investigation. The detailed questions relating to VW bonds and ABS papers have not previously been dealt with by other US authorities, according to the court documents available to the Handelsblatt. There were also delays because some witnesses were anything but cooperative.
So it was not possible, with the former VW-USA boss Michael Horn and the former CEO Martin Winterkorn to speak. “These are factors that the SEC staff can not or hardly influence,” writes the US Securities and Exchange Commission in the court papers. The SEC also complains that it has not been involved in the compromise with the US judiciary in early 2017.
A spokesman for Volkswagen responded that the company had fully cooperated in investigations with the SEC. In addition, Volkswagen had already reached an agreement on ABS papers in its comparison with the US judiciary in January 2017.
The German car manufacturer criticizes the US stock market supervision for having begun its investigations in 2017 in connection with VW corporate bonds. Private bond investors had already sued Volkswagen in June 2016. In addition, Volkswagen had always paid interest in good time and the papers had always remained in the so-called “investment grade”.
In the period from April 2014 to May 2015, Volkswagen sold $ 13 billion worth of bonds on the US capital market, according to SEC papers. However, the people in charge at the group knew about diesel fraud at this early stage.
Volkswagen had concealed the scandal and thus sold bonds at inflated prices. VW had taken several hundred million dollars in addition, which would have never given the company in the face of diesel fraud.
Volkswagen considers the SEC complaint in principle unjustified. The group had already announced in the spring that he would emphatically put up against it. The complaint had considerable legal and substantive defects.
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