Volkswagen headquarters in Wolfsburg
The eavesdropping affair could have legal consequences.
Düsseldorf, Frankfurt Dozens of court cases, private detectives and now also a spy affair: The dispute between Volkswagen and Prevent has developed into a business thriller. The magazine “Business Insider” revealed last weekend that an informer had recorded confidential meetings of a task force of the car company. They were primarily concerned with the question of how the Wolfsburg-based company can get rid of the unpleasant automotive supplier group.
The eavesdropping affair could have legal consequences. The spy or his client faces criminal consequences. Possible allegations: violation of the confidentiality of the word or business secrets. The Braunschweig public prosecutor has already intervened.
It is remarkable. Usually, the offenses in question are only at the request of the injured party – in that case VW – tracked. The company is examining a criminal complaint, but has not yet filed one.
It is still unclear who the mole is. In any case, Prevent claims to know nothing of the recordings. The supplier is now reviewing legal steps against Volkswagen based on the content of the recordings. “According to media reports, there are violations of antitrust law, possible stock-insider transactions, false statements to authorities and courts, and unacceptable dealings with many suppliers in the room,” said a spokesman.
A participant of the VW task force at the time said that the search for the group audit would probably be difficult. More than 20 employees took part in the meetings. In addition, the events were years ago.
“It is a real disappointment that there must be an informer among the colleagues who has provided Prevent with information. Who can you still trust? Who does that? Was the shortage of money? ”Said a VW insider.
The eavesdropping affair is the culmination of a year-long feud about price increases, delivery freezes and the question of whether car manufacturers or their suppliers are using the longer lever.
The Bosnian entrepreneurial family Hastor, owner of the Prevent group, accuses the VW group of abusing its market power. The Wolfsburg, however, accuse the Prevent group of wanting to blackmail them. Internal documents show that Volkswagen feared that this could happen as early as 2011 – five years before the conflict in Germany escalated.
Partners become enemies
VW and today’s intimate enemy are linked by a long partnership: At the turn of the millennium, the car manufacturer invested millions in a joint venture, a factory in Sarajevo, in which Prevent screwed VW models together. Company founder Nijaz Hastor bought a house in Wolfsburg, German diplomats spoke of a “love marriage”. But in 2008 VW stopped assembling the system. The relationship started to crack.
It was further burdened by the change of generations: Hastor successively handed over the management to his sons Kenan and Damir, who from now on defended themselves against price pressure, demanded price increases and threatened delivery stops. One of her first projects: the takeover of the auto glass specialist Rioglass 2009.
At Prevent it is said that the group took over the company at the instigation of the then VW purchasing director Francisco Javier García Sanz. The Wolfsburg had promised to support the business – but later broke this agreement. VW rejects the allegation. For the young Hastors, the commitment turned out to be a loss.
Nevertheless, they bought other troubled companies. A VW presentation shows that Prevent caused unrest in Wolfsburg from 2011 at the latest. The document points out that in addition to Rioglass, the group also includes the plastics specialist Bergler and the seat shell producer TWB have taken over – two important suppliers for VW. In the presentation, the acquisitions mark the beginning of the “prevent history”.
The VW group feared that the group could exploit its dependency and worked on an exit strategy for the first time. A Volkswagen spokesman said on request that there had been repeated disputes “before the known court proceedings”. From the VW group’s point of view, the point of dispute was that of contractual claims, which Prevent wanted to enforce with “considerable pressure”.
In the end, a solution was always found, the VW spokesman said, but new demands followed these solutions. On June 12, 2013, the “Elephant” project was finally presented. The goal: to “steer” the unpleasant business partner – according to the “Business Insider” by 2020 at the latest.
According to Handelsblatt information, the project was canceled after only a few months because Sanz and Hastor senior had cleared up their concerns in a personal conversation.
Multiple legal proceedings
In spring 2015, when the Hastor sons had taken over the business, things did as Volkswagen feared: several prevent companies stopped delivering. Initially, there were plant downtimes and production downtimes only in Brazil, later also in Germany. Because the Prevent subsidiaries Car Trim and ES Automobilguss stopped all deliveries there, the production lines in six German VW factories came to a standstill, including the golf production at the Wolfsburg headquarters.
There are more than 40,000 suppliers in the Volkswagen database. But such radical resistance was new to the car manufacturer at the time. In order to limit the damage, the Wolfsburg-based company agreed with the supplier group on a so-called corner paper that was to regulate further cooperation. The companies, it was officially said at the time, wanted to put the cooperation back on a reliable basis.
But the armistice had an expiration date. Because the VW group wanted to prevent Prevent from bringing him to his knees again, he reactivated the plans from the time of the “Elefant” project and looked for replacement suppliers. The Wolfsburg-based company launched “Project 1” – the task force whose meetings were listened to for more than a year.
One can only speculate about the background of the spy affair. The status could play a role in the many legal proceedings still open between VW and Prevent. The supply group has filed a lawsuit in the United States and is demanding $ 750 million in damages because VW is said to have put pressure on suppliers to reject Hastors’ takeover opportunities.
The group also accuses VW of having given an order to a Berlin company to monitor “target persons” from the prevent environment and to find out some of their private addresses. For its part, VW wants to claim the damage from the delivery freeze in 2016 and put the figure at more than 100 million euros.
More: Eavesdropping over secret meetings in a dispute with supplier Prevent shakes VW.