Senior Volkswagen managers were aware as early as 2004 that labour leaders and their company contacts were abusing expense accounts for personal gain, a former VW physician testified today in court in the trial of former works council chief Klaus Volkert and former personnel manager Klaus-Joachim Gebauer who are accused of inciting breach of trust by being involved in a sex and bribery scandal at the company.

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According to a Reuters report of Tuesday proceedings, the doctor said former personnel manager Peter Hartz and ex-CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder were informed when Gebauer, a Hartz aide on trial in the case, got drunk in public at a hotel in January 2004.


“It likely became a matter for the management board because travel costs were being reviewed in this regard,” the doctor reportedly told the German court, citing what he had heard from Gebauer after the incident.


At issue is whether funds from Europe’s biggest carmaker financed so-called “pleasure trips”, including visits to prostitutes, as a way to curry favour with labour leaders, the news agency noted.


According to the report, the physician also quoted Gebauer as saying VW funds had covered several hundred thousand German marks worth of such expenses over years.

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“The people at the top know about certain trips and expenses,” Gebauer had told the doctor, he said, although Reuters noted it remained open who exactly was meant by this.


The doctor, who admitted he also used prostitutes at the company’s expense, was quoted as saying he thought there was “overall a relatively large group, including managers, who knew about and tolerated the trips”.


According to Reuters, Volkswagen said it had obtained a restraining order preventing media from naming the doctor who testified.


Earlier report here: Focus this week on Piech