Economy
Wednesday 02 March 2016
Volkswagen sets himself against the charge to defend to have informed the public last September to late on the gas scandal, thereby injuring investors. Now admits VW a that the issue is complicated.
Ex-Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn has been informed early to Consolidated Information on exhaust scandal. Already in May 2014 and thus almost a half year before the discovery of the affair manipulated diesel exhaust emissions, a first note had been drawn to the then CEO, Volkswagen announced the evening. Nevertheless, the Wolfsburg-based group holds derivative actions in connection with the affair unfounded.
The prescribed in company law obligation to disclose potentially share price moving insights (ad hoc duty) was not violated because the Board only on 18. September 2015 essential information had become known around the manipulation. do
shareholders before a court, the company was late in informing. thus justify their claims for compensation for suffered losses. The US Environmental Protection Agency had made public the process 18 September last year. VW conceded the manipulations that affect approximately eleven million vehicles worldwide, only two days later – on a Sunday. The next day, the VW shares plunged by nearly 20 percent, the largest carmaker in Europe lost within a few hours of twelve billion euros at market value.
On 23 September Winterkorn took over as CEO his hat and withdrew later of all other offices back in the group. Two days later, the Supervisory Board appointed the former Porsche CEO Matthias Müller as company head. It is designed to promote awareness of the scandal, has fallen into the deepest crisis in its history by the VW.
million penalty is in space
Volkswagen tackles the view that the concern had had until the publication by the EPA “no evidence of market price sensitive information”. Until that time, you had gone out of a manageable number of about 500,000 vehicles covered and fines in a two-digit or lower three-digit million range. From the later called by the authority penalties of up to $ 18 billion they had at that time had no idea.
In the meantime is due to Volkswagen by the US Department of Justice alleged against violations of US environmental laws, a sum of up to $ 46 billion in the room. The punishment is likely in the opinion of lawyers, however, be significantly lower as suggest earlier cases.
To what extent Winterkorn can be held accountable themselves, is in the opinion of lawyers open. The Braunschweig office is investigating six suspects for suspected fraud in connection with the manipulation of nitrogen oxide emissions. The former CEO is not among them, according to the court. Kenner US law assume, however, that Winterkorn could be blamed entirely. As CEO he had taken overall responsibility and should therefore stand up straight in the United States for acts of employees.
After VW representation is unclear whether Winterkorn has even taken the first note to note of it. This had been settled its extensive Weekend Post. In November 2014, gave a further note to him. Later, a working group was established, which dealt with the problems of VW with the emission limits in the US. On July 27 in 2015. Staff have spoken in the presence of Winterkorn and VW brand chief Herbert Diess on diesel issue. It is not yet clear whether the parties had been at that time aware that the software changes to US environmental regulations violated.
Interim report expected
More about
the end of August last year, the Legal Department and US lawyers of technicians was finally explained fully, wherein the cause of the irregularities were. This had led the board to the realization that there was an illegal shutdown in the engine controller. Then we decided to admit it against the US environmental authorities. This had happened on September 3, the day after Winterkorn had been informed by a note on notice. At that time it was still assumed that the manipulation is limited to the United States. Later VW was forced to admit that around eleven million vehicles are affected worldwide.
Volkswagen put 6.7 billion euros for the repair of the vehicles to the side and lowered its profit targets for 2015. Because of the ongoing internal investigation into the scandal, the Group also postponed the presentation of its balance sheet and the General Meeting. The US law firm Jones Day is to present an interim status of their studies in the second half of April. It is still unclear how much the scandal will end up costing the group. Because in the US numerous class action lawsuits have been filed.
Source: n-tv.de
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