Volkswagen's Former CEO Charged In Germany Over Diesel Rigging (bloomberg.com) 62
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Former Volkswagen AG head Martin Winterkorn was charged with serious fraud in Germany for his role in the diesel-rigging scandal that rocked the carmaker and cost it about $33 billion. The former chief executive officer was accused alongside four other managers of equipping vehicles sold to customers in Europe and the U.S. with a so-called defeat device, authorities in Braunschweig said Monday in an emailed statement. Fraud charges carry a sentence of as long as 10 years, and prosecutors also want to seize bonuses paid to the five men, which ranged from 300,000 euros for some managers to about 11 million euros for Winterkorn.
Allegations that VW wrongfully withheld information about the emission software used in its diesel cars have loomed over the company since the scandal first broke in 2015. The crisis involved as many as 11 million diesel cars worldwide, and shattered the Wolfsburg-based company's reputation. Winterkorn's lawyer Felix Doerr said prosecutors haven't given him full access to their files. Unless all information is disclosed to him, he said, he can't comment on the charges. Winterkorn was also charged with breach of trust for failing to swiftly tell authorities about the defeat devices used "to seemingly meet tightened emission standards for diesel cars and preserve market shares for VW or even increase them for the benefit of the company and the accused themselves," prosecutors said.
Allegations that VW wrongfully withheld information about the emission software used in its diesel cars have loomed over the company since the scandal first broke in 2015. The crisis involved as many as 11 million diesel cars worldwide, and shattered the Wolfsburg-based company's reputation. Winterkorn's lawyer Felix Doerr said prosecutors haven't given him full access to their files. Unless all information is disclosed to him, he said, he can't comment on the charges. Winterkorn was also charged with breach of trust for failing to swiftly tell authorities about the defeat devices used "to seemingly meet tightened emission standards for diesel cars and preserve market shares for VW or even increase them for the benefit of the company and the accused themselves," prosecutors said.
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Trump has already boasted that his vast knowledge of firefighting leads him to conclude the French aren't raking their forests properly.
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I know it is completely out of topic. But yeah it is terrible.
I grew up in Paris, I have been bummed out all afternoon.
Finally (Score:3)
That probably means the evidence is extremely solid or they would have swept it under the carpet. Greed, stupidity and no integrity at all.
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As such it is the shareholders who are responsible and who should be on trial. It is the shareholder's will that the CEO was executing.
That sounds a bit too much like "I was only following orders" to be true.
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You clearly have never been to a shareholders meeting. Often, maximizing value is much, much more important to the shareholders than maximizing profit. Pension funds, in particular, demand stability in dividends, and don't give a flying fuck about short term profits. Stability, in fact, is more important to the pension funds than increasing dividends. Carl Icann style corporate raiders are very happy to shed profit in order to get an immediate cash payout. The day traders, who are most impacted by P&L s
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What if the shareholders don't know what's going on, or at least there is no evidence they knew what was going on? Cluelessness is rarely a felony, for good or bad.
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So lockup the German state of Hannover and the Porsche family?
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Hannover hasn't been a state for over 70 years.
You mean Lower Saxonia.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Interesting)
At first they blamed it all on the engineers. Engineers rarely intentionally rig things that way without management pressure.
I've been pressured to rig IT stuff via management, so I see this from a very personal perspective.
and professional engineer certification will fix f (Score:2)
and professional engineer certification will fix that so they can TELL PHB TO FUCK OFF MY certification is on the line
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Winterkorn is an engineer. He is in fact an engine-specialists with a reputation to always want to look at all the details himself. You know, somebody that takes one look at the performance numbers of the affected engines and immediately sees that something cannot be right.
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He was functioning as a manager when the transgressions happened, no?
I'm not saying engineers are more moral, only that typically the pro/con risks of that kind of fiddling on one's own volition doesn't favor doing it when employed as an engineer.
If somebody's rank is "engineer", the benefits of that kind of cheating done without management requesting it are small or negative because the risk of getting caught (by co.) is fairly large and management will typically NOT give you bonuses/kudos for doing some
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He was CEO. I am just pointing out it is exceptionally likely he still looked at engine tech personally and his expertise would have told him something was wrong.
No argument on your points, I agree.
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There seems to be a miscommunication somewhere. I tried to clarify and it still didn't work.
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Poorly stated, maybe, but not "wrong" in terms of what I intended to say. (At least nobody presented any info contradicting what I intended to say. They debunked their head's own version.)
It's been pretty obvious it's Winterkorn's fault (Score:2)
The
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Germany has a federal law system, not a common law system. You can be called to serve as a judge, not to serve in a jury. As a judge, you're required to pass judgements according to the law (precedents do not create law). If there's no applicable law, you can exercise some discretion in a judgement, but you're required to justify it.
Official story? (Score:1)
I recall a few years ago when the VW scandal first came out that VW kept claiming that it was due to "rogue engineers". I don't know whether this former CEO was one of the VW people who made the claim that the emissions rigging was just due to "rogue engineers". But whatever happened to that story? Has VW since then officially admitted to lying to the public on top of its emissions rigging, which *was not* just due to "rogue engineers"?
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But enough about your mom.
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I recall a few years ago when the VW scandal first came out that VW kept claiming that it was due to "rogue engineers".
As someone who works in Germany, there's no such thing as a rogue engineer. Getting a frigging pencil from the storage cupboard requires multiple levels of independent signoff, paper forms, and a data entry clerk to keep the system in check.
Diesel rigging? (Score:2)
Is that the web of ropes and tackle that Germans are using now to attack sails to their newest generation of environmentally friendly semis? The diesel engine would still kick in if a truck becomes becalmed on the autobahn.
Company growth for shareholders (Score:1)
Still charging the wrong guy (Score:1)
It is obvious that this cheating was approved by the then chairman and family head, Ferdinand Piech, who ran the company until 2015.
Piech was an engineer and engine specialist, famous for his detailed involvement in new designs.