Four former Volkswagen Group managers have been convicted by a German court for their roles in the ‘dieselgate’ emissions scandal, in which VW was discovered to have rigged emissions tests with ‘defeat devices’ that made diesel emissions appear cleaner than they were.
VW in 2015 admitted using illegal software to rig diesel engine tests in the United States, sparking a crisis that led to huge fines and associated legal costs for Volkswagen.
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Bloomberg reported that Jens Hadler, who led diesel-engine development from 2007 to 2011, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison over the sale of more than two million affected vehicles. The news agency also said former top engineer Hanno Jelden received two years and seven months for ‘aggravated fraud’ linked to the sale of nearly three million cars.
After a four-year trial, the Braunschweig Regional Court also handed former executive Heinz-Jakob Neusser a suspended sentence of one year and three months for his role in the emissions cheating scheme. The fourth conviction was handed out to a defendant only identified as ‘Thorsten D’ who got a suspended sentence of one year and ten months after cooperating with investigators.
A court spokesperson reportedly said criminal proceedings against a total of 31 defendants were still pending.
The dieselgate scandal led to the axing of VW Group chief executive Martin Winterkorn and tarnished VW’s reputation worldwide. The ‘defeat device’ software used on Volkswagen Group diesel engines made it appear that they complied with emission standards for nitrogen oxides during lab tests and the software did the same with CO2 emissions standards in the US and Europe.
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By GlobalDataVW Group CEO Winterkorn resigned as CEO on 23 September, 2015, a week after the scandal broke. About three years later, VW terminated Rupert Stadler’s contract as Audi CEO against the backdrop of a criminal investigation into whether he was involved in emissions cheating.
