The former boss of Volkswagen has appeared in court charged with fraud, market manipulation and perjury, nine years after the carmaker was found to have rigged emissions tests.
Martin Winterkorn was chief executive of the German company in 2015 when it was engulfed in a scandal that sent shockwaves through the entire industry.
It emerged the company had been deliberately manipulating official emissions checks, building cars that could pass laboratory tests while producing illegal levels of pollution in daily use.
The so-called “dieselgate” affair erupted in September 2015, when the US Environmental Protection Agency accused Volkswagen of installing illegal software on diesel cars.
The former chief executive stands accused of deliberately duping Volkswagen’s customers and shareholders, as well as German politicians.
The company had been struggling to get its engines to meet stringent US emissions standards while maintaining high performance and reliability.
Mr Winterkorn, who had been chief executive since 2007, stepped down within days of the scandal coming to light.
It has accused Mr Winterkorn of giving false testimony to a parliamentary committee that was investigating the scandal in 2017.
Volkswagen chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch and the former head of the brand, Herbert Diess were both charged with market manipulation.
Mr Winterkorn has already paid €11m to his former company as part of a settlement in relation to the scandal.
Nine years after it was discovered that the automaker had rigged emissions tests, the former CEO of Volkswagen has appeared in court on charges of fraud, market manipulation, and perjury.
2015 saw the German company, then led by CEO Martin Winterkorn, engulfed in a scandal that rocked the industry as a whole.
It was discovered that the company had been purposefully falsifying official emissions tests in order to create automobiles that could pass laboratory testing but emit unlawfully high levels of pollution when driven on a daily basis.
The trial for Mr. Winterkorn began on Tuesday. He disputes the allegations.
“Our client did not intentionally mislead the capital market so that investors would suffer, he did not deceive or injure anyone, and he told the investigative committee the truth,” his attorneys stated.
The US Environmental Protection Agency accused Volkswagen of installing illegal software on its diesel cars in September 2015, sparking the start of the “dieselgate” scandal.
The scandal escalated into one of the largest corporate scandals Germany had ever seen and initiated a political push for electric vehicles that has had a significant impact on the global automotive industry.
Allegations have been made against the former CEO of purposefully misleading German politicians, Volkswagen’s shareholders, and its customers. If convicted, the 77-year-old could spend a maximum of 10 years behind bars.
The manufacturer launched a campaign to boost sales in North America, specifically of diesel vehicles, which it marketed as “clean diesels,” which is where the scandal started.
But those cars were dirty, that much was true. The business had been having trouble getting its engines to meet the strict US emissions regulations without sacrificing dependability or performance.
So-called “defeat devices” were the solution that its engineers devised. These were programs that detected when an automobile was being examined in a lab and activated the vehicle’s emissions controls to ensure that the test would pass.
It would turn them off again to maximize performance when the car was driving.
Later, it was revealed that over nine million cars in North America and Europe had the software installed, and that the scam had been running since 2006.
Affected brands included VW itself as well as Audi, Porsche, Seat, and Skoda, among others within the Volkswagen corporate empire.
Heavy fines, recalls, and consumer compensation were all required of VW. It lost over €30 billion (£25 point 2 billion) as a result of the scandal.
Days after the scandal surfaced, Mr. Winterkorn, who had served as CEO since 2007, announced his resignation. Concerns about his health caused the proceedings to be postponed. He was charged in 2019 and was scheduled to go on trial in 2021 with other executives.
Prosecutors in Braunschweig, near Volkswagen’s headquarters in the Lower Saxon town of Wolfsburg, have filed two of the charges against him.
Because consumers were “deceived about the characteristics” of the cars they were purchasing and suffered joint losses of hundreds of millions of euros as a result of the scandal, they have accused him of fraud.
Additionally, he has been charged with manipulating the market after it is purported that he neglected to alert investors about the emissions-rigging software as soon as he learned about it.
The prosecutor’s office in Berlin has issued an additional indictment. It has charged Mr. Winterkorn with providing a parliamentary committee looking into the scandal in 2017 with false testimony.
Both Herbert Diess, the former head of the brand, and Hans Dieter Poetsch, the chairman of Volkswagen, faced accusations of manipulating the market. However, those accusations were withdrawn once the business consented to pay a €9 million fine.
Upon admitting to fraud by negligence regarding his involvement in the affair, the former CEO of Audi, Rupert Stadler, was sentenced to 21 months of suspended jail time and fined €11.1 million.
In Germany, they were all indicted. Oliver Schmidt, a former engineer, was put on trial in the US, in contrast. in 2017 he was given a seven-year prison sentence; however, he was freed in 2021.
As part of the settlement related to the scandal, Mr. Winterkorn has already paid his former company €11m.
