Ex-VW boss faces September trial over ‘dieselgate’ scandal

FRANKFURT, March 15 — Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn will go on trial in September for his role in the carmaker’s emissions-cheating scandal, a German court said today, nine years after the saga began.

The German auto giant was plunged into crisis after admitting in 2015 it had installed software to rig emissions levels in 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.

Winterkorn, 76, had originally been due to stand trial for fraud several years ago but the case was postponed indefinitely due to his poor health.

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A regional court in the city of Brunswick said it had now decided to combine two cases against the former chief executive, one on suspicion of fraud and making false statements and a second on market manipulation.

The trial will begin on September 3, said the court, which is close to VW’s headquarters in Wolfsburg.

Eighty-nine hearings are scheduled until September, 2025.

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Winterkorn is accused of organised commercial fraud in relation to the scandal, which involved the installation of so-called defeat devices that made vehicles appear less polluting in lab tests than they were on the road.

Proceedings related to market manipulation had earlier been halted but were restarted in December at the request of prosecutors.

In that case, Winterkorn is accused of deliberately failing to inform investors about the installation of the rigging software, in violation of German stock market regulations.

He resigned as chief executive of VW group — whose brands also include Audi, Porsche, Skoda and Seat — in September 2015, a week after the scandal broke.

In 2021, he agreed a settlement with Volkswagen to pay the company around €11 million (RM56 million) in damages in relation to the controversy.

In June last year, ex-Audi CEO Rupert Stadler received a suspended sentence and a fine at the end of his trial, making him the highest-ranking former executive to be convicted over the scandal.

The “dieselgate” saga is seen as Germany’s biggest post-war industrial scandal. It has cost VW around 30 billion euros in fines, legal costs and compensation to car owners, mainly in the United States. — AFP