The former boss of Volkswagen’s Audi brand has admitted that he suspected emissions cheating before the diesel emissions scandal came to light, raising more questions about how much VW executives knew about the widespread cover-up.
Rupert Stadler, a former VW board member, told a Munich district court on Tuesday that he was continuing to defraud customers and investors even after he “admitted that it was possible” that the vehicles contained equipment to deceive regulators and thereby defraud customers and investors. Authorize the sale of cars in the belief that they emit lower emissions.
“I have no knowledge of the vehicle being rigged and the buyer being harmed as a result, but I believe it is possible,” Stadler said in a statement read by defense attorneys. “I’ve seen firsthand that more care is needed,” he added.
Stadler’s admission to omissions and false certification fraud is the first from a former top executive at Volkswagen, which sought to draw a line under the “dieselgate” revelations by U.S. regulators in 2015.
He spent more than two years denying the allegations, but earlier this year a court sentenced Stadler to a suspended sentence and fined him 1.1 million euros if he admitted to them – a turning point in the case, which, coupled with previous The confessions of two Audi engineers stand alongside him. A verdict is expected by the end of June.
Dieselgate is the biggest scandal to rock Volkswagen in recent years, with the company paying more than 32 billion euros in legal fees and fines related to the cover-up.
Just last week, at Volkswagen’s annual shareholder meeting, investors complained about how the Dieselgate scandal was handled. Ingo Speich, head of corporate governance at Deka, a top 20 shareholder, criticized the “lack of transparency” for shareholders on the matter.
“We remain very dissatisfied with the (Volkswagen) supervisory board’s contribution to clarifying the diesel scandal,” he said last week.
Attention will now turn to the status of three trials of former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn, two of which have been put on hold due to the 75-year-old’s failing health. An ongoing investigation in Braunschweig is being conducted without the former VW boss to determine whether Winterkorn knew about the fraud.
Before taking the top VW Group job, Winterkorn was Stadler’s predecessor at Audi, where emissions cheating originated.
VW was forced to admit to a scandal over installing rigged nitrogen oxide tests in nearly 10 million cars, a scandal that has reverberated across the auto industry and revealed how the company can exploit loopholes in emissions requirements.
VW said it was not a party to the lawsuits against Stadler, but added that “we are following these lawsuits and will carefully examine the content of the statements made and their consequences”.