According to a media report, an agreement is emerging between Volkswagen and several former board members. According to draft contracts, ex-VW boss Martin Winterkorn (74) agreed to pay around ten million euros to the company, reports the business magazine “Business Insider”. Corresponding agreements with the former top managers should be signed this week.
In the course of this, the automaker is said to have agreed to pay another 200 to 300 million euros with its manager liability insurance. The sum could even be slightly over 300 million euros in the end. Two insiders told the Reuters news agency that the VW supervisory board should discuss a compromise over the weekend, which will then have to be approved by the annual general meeting in July. Volkswagen did not want to comment on the report; a statement from a Winterkorn spokesman was initially not available.
The VW supervisory board had decided at the end of March, von Winterkorn and the former Audi-Chef Rupert Stadler (58) to claim damages due to the breach of due diligence obligations under stock corporation law. Also four former board members of Audi, Porsche and VW took the group because of the Exhaust manipulation in recourse. The supervisory board relied on investigations by a law firm, which in recent years evaluated several million documents, files, investigation files of the public prosecutor’s office as well as official and judicial proceedings and which itself conducted more than 1,500 interviews and interrogations.
In the opinion of the Supervisory Board, it was clear that Winterkorn had failed to clarify the background to the use of impermissible software functions in diesel engines between 2009 and 2015 in the period from July 27, 2015 United States were sold. In addition, Winterkorn did not ensure that the questions posed by the US authorities in this connection were promptly and truthfully and completely answered. Winterkorn, who led the car company until he resigned in September 2015, regretted the decision of the supervisory board. He had his lawyer reject the allegation against him.