Annual General Meeting of Porsche SE (archive image)
Did the Volkswagen parent inform you in good time about the financial consequences of the diesel scandal?
(Photo: dpa)
Frankfurt The affair of manipulated diesel vehicles has costly consequences for the Volkswagen Group. After the car owners, the investors are also demanding compensation. The VW parent, Porsche SE (PSE), is now being brought to court separately.
The question is whether the PSE provided timely information about the financial consequences of the diesel scandal at its subsidiary Volkswagen (VW). The Porsche shareholders doubt this. A special procedure before the higher regional court (OLG) Stuttgart should bring certainty about it.
As the OLG Stuttgart announced on Monday, a British investor was designated as the model plaintiff in the process under the Capital Investor Model Procedure Act (KapMuG) (Az. 20 Kp 2/17). The investor is the Wolverhampton City Council Pension Fund. However, due to various deadlines for comments, the start of the oral hearing cannot be expected before next spring.
The OLG Stuttgart initially rejected the opening of its own sample procedure and referred to the ongoing capital sample procedure of the Sparkasse fund house Deka Investments against VW before the OLG Braunschweig (Az. 3 Kap 1/16). In the summer, however, the Federal Court of Justice decided that proceedings must also be conducted in Stuttgart (Ref .: II ZB 10/19). Because in Braunschweig it was about the violation of the disclosure obligations by VW AG, in Stuttgart about that of PSE.
Since 2007, VW had manipulated the diesel engines of some vehicles to make nitrogen oxide emissions appear lower than they really were. On September 22nd, 2015, the carmaker published an ad hoc announcement that around eleven million cars worldwide had an illegal disconnection device, which is why the group set up around 6.5 billion euros in provisions.
Porsche SE and VW reject the allegation
On the same day, PSE published an ad hoc announcement on the same matter and announced that due to its equity stake in VW, a negative effect on earnings was to be expected. As a result, the share prices of the common and preferred shares of VW and PSE collapsed.
The plaintiffs are of the opinion that PSE, the main shareholder of VW, informed them too late about the financial consequences of the diesel scandal. The PSE rejects the accusation, as does Volkswagen itself.
“In addition, the Porsche proceedings will deal with the question of the extent to which the ex-VW boss Martin Winterkorn can also be attributed his knowledge as VW CEO in his position as CEO of Porsche SE,” adds Klaus Nieding, CEO of the firm Nieding + Barth, who represents the British pension fund.
Bondholders are also joining forces
In addition to the shareholders, the bond owners of VW are now also forming up to claim damages due to the diesel scandal. They argue that if market participants had known about the inadmissible defeat devices, VW and various subsidiaries would not have been able to bring their bonds to the market at such low interest rates. A lawsuit is being prepared.
Similar to the investor sample proceedings in Braunschweig and Stuttgart, the processes could drag on for years. But investors don’t want that either. “With the various lawsuits, we want to increase the pressure on the group to reach a settlement with investors,” explains Nieding.
More: Bondholders should now also sue Volkswagen.