Rupert Stadler faces charges of “fraud, falsification of certification and false advertising”.
Frankfurt am Main, Germany:
Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler becomes the first to stand trial in Germany on Wednesday for the dieselgate emissions scandal, five years after parent company VW admitted responsibility.
Stadler, 57, faces charges of “fraud, falsification of certifications and false advertising” according to an indictment which will be read in Munich district court.
He is alongside former Audi and Porsche manager Wolfgang Hatz and two Audi engineers.
So far, no senior executive has been convicted in Germany for the scandal that erupted in September 2015 when the Volkswagen Group admitted to installing cheat software in 11 million diesel engines.
The so-called defeat devices made the cars appear to pollute less in lab tests than on the road.
Media interest in the opening hearing is expected to be high, prompting court officials to move the proceedings to a justice building on the outskirts of Munich.
However, due to coronavirus restrictions, seating in the courtroom will be limited, a court spokesperson told AFP.
‘No fault’
Stadler had been CEO of Audi for 11 years when he was arrested in June 2018.
He spent four months in pre-trial detention because he feared he could try to influence witnesses.
A career man at Audi, he joined the luxury car maker in 1990 and was appointed CEO in 2007.
Prosecutors say Stadler was aware of the emissions scam at the end of September 2015 “at the latest”, but nonetheless authorized the sale of thousands of additional vehicles equipped with anti-defeat devices.
His three co-defendants are accused of developing diesel engines equipped with manipulation software, which were installed in cars sold as early as 2009.
The charges against the men relate to a total of 434,420 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles sold in Europe and the United States.
Stadler has always denied the charges.
Co-accused Hatz, whose past roles within the VW Group include the head of research and development of his Porsche unit, also rejects any wrongdoing.
His lawyer said Hatz would respond to the charges “in detail”.
The large, complex trial is expected to run until the end of December 2022.
The indictment alone, to be read aloud Wednesday, is over 90 pages long.
Defendants face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Dieselgate invoice
Stadler isn’t the only top executive gearing up for his day in court.
A regional court in Brunswick, near VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, ruled earlier this month that Martin Winterkorn, former VW group chief executive, should stand trial on charges of fraud and stock market manipulation.
The current group CEO, Herbert Diess, and the chairman of the supervisory board, Hans Dieter Poetsch, had been accused of failing to notify shareholders in a timely manner of the pollution scam.
But those proceedings were dropped after VW agreed to a settlement that cost it nine million euros ($ 10.5 million).
Five years after the onset of the crisis, the German auto giant is still one of the world‘s largest automakers, but it remains embroiled in costly legal issues.
The group has already paid more than 30 billion euros in fines, legal costs and compensation to car owners – mainly in the United States.
In April, VW settled Germany’s biggest lawsuit in an out-of-court settlement in which it agreed to pay around € 750 million to 235,000 customers, or between € 1,350 and € 6,250 per car.
And the final “dieselgate” bill is far from settled after a high-level German court in May ordered VW to buy back a rigged diesel from its owner, paving the way for similar deals with thousands of other applicants.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
