Stuttgard public prosecutor's office staff are "about" to search premises of Daimler AG at several locations in Germany, the automaker said in a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon (23 May).
Daimler said the searches were "in connection with its preliminary investigations of known and unknown employees of Daimler due to suspicion of fraud and criminal advertising relating to the possible manipulation of exhaust gas after treatment in passenger cars with diesel engines".
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
"The company is fully cooperating with the authorities," the statement said.
"Daimler AG has already provided information on governmental information requests, inquiries and investigations in annual reports and interim reports; in Interim Report Q1 2017, this also included the possibility of searches of Daimler premises."Beyond the information contained in this press release, we cannot comment any further on the ongoing preliminary investigations."
The Stuttgart public prosecutor's office told the Reuters news agency 23 prosecutors and around 230 staff, including police and state criminal authorities, were involved in searching 11 sites in the German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Berlin, Lower Saxony and Saxony on the look out for data files and evidence.
