Hue and Cri

A German court has suspended proceedings in the trial of former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn, who has been charged with fraud and market manipulation in connection with the automaker’s use of rigged software that let millions of diesel-engine cars cheat on emissions tests.

The regional court in Braunschweig on Tuesday cited an unspecified health issue that meant Winterkorn, 78, was not in a condition to face trial.

The court said in a statement that it had “provisionally terminated” the proceedings.

[May 26 2025 Neusser, Hanno, Jens, Thorsten sentenced ]

Former VW executive Heinz-Jakob Neusser received a suspended jail term of one year and three months from the court in the city of Braunschweig. The former head of drive electronics, named only as Hanno J., was given a sentence of two years and seven months. The heaviest sentence of four years and six months was given to the former head of diesel motor development, Jens H., while Thorsten D. was given a suspended sentence of one year and 10 months. A German court in 2020 it was ending proceedings against tCEO Herbert Diess and non-executive Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch after the carmaker agreed to pay a fine of 9 million euros ($9.9 million) over the diesel emissions scandal. Two VW managers received prison sentences in the U.S. The former head of the company’s Audi division, Rupert Stadler, was given a suspended sentence of 21 months and a fine of 1.1 million euros ($1.25 million).

[November 10 2024 wider investigation ]

Thousands of cars could be recalled as a result of a government investigation into a far wider dieselgate scandal,

[September 3 2024 Winterkorn trial ]

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Former Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn went on trial Tuesday on charges of fraud and market manipulation in connection with the corporate scandal over Volkswagen’s use of rigged software that let millions of cars cheat on emissions tests and emit high levels of harmful pollutants. The state court in Braunschweig proceedings were delayed because of health problems.

[July 22 2023 Stadler gets suspended sentence ]

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(Reuters) – Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler was handed a suspended sentence of one year and nine months by a Munich court on Tuesday for fraud by negligence in the 2015 diesel scandal, becoming the first former Volkswagen (ETR:VOWG_p) board member to receive such a sentence.

The ex-boss was fined 1.1 million euros ($1.20 million), which will go to the state treasury and non-governmental organisations, the court said.

The sentence is in the middle of the 1.5-2 year timeframe the judge had said the former CEO would face if he confessed to the charge. In the courtroom his lawyer read out a carefully written, complicated text, full of caveats, conditionals and the passive voice.

His lawyer Ulrike Thole-Groll said in May that Stadler did not know that vehicles had been manipulated and buyers had been harmed, but recognised it was a possibility and accepted that there was a need for more care.

Prosecutors had originally wanted a 2-million-euro fine, citing Stadler’s salaries at Audi and Volkswagen and his financial and real estate assets.

Stadler’s trial, one of the most prominent court proceedings in the aftermath of the diesel scandal, has been ongoing since 2020.

Audi’s parent group Volkswagen and Audi admitted in 2015 to having used illegal software to cheat on emissions tests.

According to prosecutors, engineers manipulated engines in such a way that they complied with legal exhaust emission values on the test bench but not on the road. Stadler was accused of failing to stop the sale of the manipulated cars after the scandal became known.

He had previously rejected the allegations.

Former Audi executive Wolfgang Hatz, also on trial with Stadler, was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence with a 400,000 euro fine, while the third defendant – engineer Giovanni P. – was handed a year and nine months and a 50,000 euro fine.

The prosecutor’s office and the accused can appeal until July 4.

His boss at the time, former VW chief executive Martin Winterkorn, has been charged by U.S. and German authorities, but Germany does not generally extradite its citizens to countries outside the European Union.

German proceedings against Winterkorn also have stalled because he is in poor health. Four other cases against former VW managers are ongoing in Braunschweig.

[November 18 2021 VW test case ]

Volkswagen should have gone public in 2008 with the engine plan that sparked its diesel emissions scandal, a German court said, as it set out its views on a test case brought by investors against the automaker.

Volkswagen admitted in 2015 to cheating U.S. diesel engine tests, sparking the biggest crisis in its history and costing the company more than 32 billion euros ($38 billion) in vehicle refits, fines and legal costs so far.

The scandal has been traced back to 2008, around when Volkswagen started using software to control diesel engine emissions that was later ruled illegal when discovered by U.S. regulators.

Whether investors can claim compensation for the plunge in Volkswagen’s share price after the scandal was exposed depends on whether it can be proven that any member of the company’s executive board was aware the plan constituted cheating, the higher regional court in Braunschweig .

The test case was brought against Volkswagen and its controlling shareholder, Porsche Automobil Holding SE, by fund manager Deka Investment GmbH.

[November 11 2021]

In a public report by Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), dated November 5, 2021, the automaker is said to be using eight defeat devices in a Mercedes-Benz E-Class with Euro 6-classified diesel engine. These devices were previously unknown, effectively reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by a substantial amount.

Automotive software expert Felix Domke, commissioned by the US law firm Milberg,

In 2020, the automaker had to pay around $2.8 billion to settle civil and environmental claims about the company’s diesel engine emissions control in about 250,000 vehicles in the United States.

The German automaker remains adamant with its stand, as it was when the issue first surfaced a few years ago. “In our view, these are not to be assessed as illegal defeat devices in the interaction and overall context of the highly complex emission control system,” a Mercedes-Benz spokesperson told Autocar.

[September 16 2021]

Frankfurt (AFP)

The trial of four former Volkswagen managers accused of fraud in the “dieselgate” emissions-cheating scandal began on September 16 2021 in the absence of the group’s ex-boss.

Among the defendants is Heinz-Jakob Neusser, former technical director at Volkswagen.

The other three, named by prosecutors as Jens H., Hanno J. and Thorsten D., held a variety of posts in product development, including emissions management.

Munich prosecutors said the four defendants were accused of “fraud, indirect false certification and criminal advertising”. They were not named.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53676205

The public prosecutor’s office did not mention any names, the report said. https://www.politico.eu/article/volkswagen-diesel-gate-germany-investigation/

Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, Stefan Knirsch, and Carsten Nagel were charged with multiple counts of violating the Clean Air Act, committing wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud the United States. All of them ran different parts of Audi’s engine development and testing divisions, and worked on the diesel engines that used “defeat devices” to cheat EPA emissions tests. None of the four are in custody, and all are believed to be in Germany.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/17/18187558/audi-charges-dieselgate-scandal-indictment-cheating

[March 27 2021 VW’s Martin Winterkorn, Rupert Stadler, sued for diesel engine tests ]

“The Supervisory Board decided at its meeting today to assert claims for damages against the former Chairman of the Group Board of Management, Prof. Martin Winterkorn, and the former Group Board of Management member and Chairman of the Board of Management of AUDI AG, Rupert Stadler, on account of breaches of the duty of care under stock corporation law.”

The company admitted in 2015 to using illegal software to rig millions of diesel engine tests in the United States, creating the biggest scandal in its history.

[June 16 2020 Axel Eiser arrested in Croatia ]

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Axel Eiser, a former Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE) engineer being sought by United States authorities as part of their investigation into a diesel-emissions cheating scandal, has been arrested in Croatia, Germany’s Handelsblatt said on June 16 2020.
Eiser is a former head of group powertrain development at Volkswagen and was also a director of powertrain development at VW’s premium brand Audi (NSUG.DE). VW admitted in September 2015 to secretly installing software in nearly 500,000 U.S. vehicles to cheat government exhaust emissions tests and pleaded guilty in 2017 to felony charges. In total, 13 people have been charged in the United States, including the four Audi managers. Managers Richard Bauder, Axel Eiser, Stefan Knirsch and Carsten Nagel all worked in Audi’s engine development division in Germany. Bauder was head of Audi’s Diesel Engine Development department. A Justice Department spokesman said previously none were in custody. All were believed to be in Germany.