Former Volkswagen works committee chief, Klaus Volkert, jailed last week for his role in a corruption scandal at the company, has denounced the outcome of his trial.
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In an interview with Der Spiegel, Volkert also suggested that Ferdinand Piech, CEO of Volkswagen at the time of the scandal, and now head of the group’s supervisory board, would have known about what was going on.
“Anyone who knows the way things were in the company at the time finds it hard to imagine that that all happened without Piech. There was little he didn’t know about at VW,” he told the magazine.
Piech testified in court and denied any knowledge of illegal payments.
Volkert was jailed for two years and nine months. This was the third trial related to the scandal, and Volkert’s sentence was the heftiest handed down.
Last year, VW’s head of human resources Peter Hartz was given a two-year suspended sentence and ordered to pay a fine of EUR2.6m for making payments to Volkert. Hartz avoided a tougher sentence in exchange for full admission and disclosure of all information relating to the issue.
Volkert complained to Der Spiegel that Hartz got away with a much lower suspended sentence partly because he was offered a deal by the court. Volkert was not offered a deal, he said.
His lawyers have said they will appeal.
Volkert also said that cosy relationships between employee representatives and management were not necessarily a bad thing.
“VW tripled its share value at the time; the work force got good money,” he said. “To this day, I cannot see any damage there.”
