Germany’s Braunschweig Regional Court convicted on Monday four ex-Volkswagen executives on the ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, ten years after the case erupted.
The case was on trial for over four years, and dates back to 2015 — when Volkswagen admitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to having installed software that manipulated emissions tests in million of vehicles.
The devices installed by the company allowed vehicles to meet nitrogen oxide emissions standards during testing, regardless of the higher emissions during normal driving on the road.
Former head of diesel engine development Jens Halder was sentenced to four and a half years in prison. Hanno Jelden, the former head of drive electronics, received a sentence of two years and seven months.
Heinz-Jakob Neusser, a former member of the Volkswagen brand’s development board, was given a suspended sentence of one year and three months, to be served on probation.
A fourth executive, who was not identified, got a similar sentence of one year and ten months.
In 2023, former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler was the first high-ranking executive to be convicted in the scandal.
After three years of trial for fraud, Stadler was sentenced with a $1.2 million fine and suspended probation. Stadler had admitted a month before that he allowed vehicles equipped with the software to remain on sale, even after the scandal went public.
Martin Winterkorn’s Trial
Ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn was accused of market manipulation in 2019, next to then-CEO Herbert Diess and chairman Hans Dieter Pötsch.
A year later, the proceedings against the later two were ended as the company paid a $9 million fine. By 2020, Volkswagen stated that it had already paid more than $34 billion in fines and settlements regarding the scandal.
Regarding Winterkorn, the manipulation charges were dismissed in 2021, with the court considering that the charge would be minimal compared to the potential penalties for fraud.
As the public prosecutor’s office wasn’t able to take the fraud charges to court, it filed for a revival of the case. The former CEO rejected the allegations, claiming that he didn’t know about the emissions cheating device before the scandal went public.
Last year, Mark Winterkorn was formally accused of perjury, market manipulation, and commercial fraud.
According to local outlet Deutsche Welle, the ex-CEO allegedly misled customers about vehicle quality, then failed to inform investors regarding the scandal as it came to light.
Winterkorn is also accused of lying during an inquiry carried out by the Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag, in 2017.
The now 78-year-old has been involved in several other cases as both a witness and a defendant. However, the status of his current case is unclear, due to his recent hospitalization.
