Volkswagen rejects ex-CEO claims
German automaker criticizes Piech for scandal accusations
VW said it would “carefully weigh the possibility of measures and claims against Mr. Piech.”
Volkswagen Group attacked its former chairman and Porsche family titan for reportedly accusing VW’s ex-CEO of lying about the automaker’s emissions scandal and for reportedly saying he told board members about emissions concerns long before they’ve acknowledged discovering the matter.
In a stunning public rebuke for a typically buttoned-up company, Volkswagen issued a statement Wednesday denying the accusations and assailing former chairman Ferdinand Piech for alleging ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn and other executives knew about possible emissions cheating.
VW said it would “carefully weigh the possibility of measures and claims against Mr. Piech.”
The feud adds a fresh layer of bitterness to a relationship that imploded when major VW shareholder and Porsche family heir Piech relinquished his leadership post in early 2015 after a failed attempt to usurp Winterkorn.
The company’s executives “have unequivocally and emphatically rejected all assertions made by Ferdinand Piech as untrue,” VW said in a statement.
Those statements came during an internal investigation conducted by law firm Jones Day on VW’s behalf. Jones Day investigators “examined in close detail” Piech’s accusations, VW said. “No evidence was forthcoming indi- cating the accuracy of these allegations, which were classified as implausible overall.”
Following recent publication in German magazine Der Spiegel and newspaper Bild of stories reportedly asserting Piech made those allegations to German prosecutors, VW acknowledged Piech made “similar” accusations to internal investigators regarding Winterkorn’s involvement.
Company spokesman Michael Brendel declined to release a full report on Jones Day’s findings, instead referring USA TODAY to a “statement of facts” VW agreed to as part of the company’s recent criminal plea bargain with the U.S. Justice Department.
The dispute comes after German prosecutors recently expanded their fraud investigation to include Winterkorn’s alleged involvement in the matter.
The prosecutor’s office in the German town of Brunswick, about 30 minutes from Volkswagen’s global headquarters in Wolfsburg, is investigating the conduct of people responsible for rigging some 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide with software to evade emissions tests.
Winterkorn, who resigned days after the scandal erupted in September 2015, has denied involvement or early knowledge of the emissions regulations cheating.
“It’s incomprehensible why I wasn’t informed early and clearly,” Winterkorn reportedly testified before a German parliamentary committee in January. “I would have prevented any type of deception or misleading of authorities.”
Since the scandal erupted, the company, whose global brands include Audi and Porsche, has agreed to pay a raft of settlements with consumers, dealers, regulators and governments worth some $22 billion.
In January, the company agreed to plead guilty in the U.S. to weaving a vast conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstructing a federal investigation, with prosecutors also charging six individual German VW executives for their alleged roles in the scheme.
The automaker has acknowledged a memo on an outside study conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation, which eventually led to the scandal’s exposure, was delivered to Winterkorn on May 23, 2014. “Whether and to which extent Mr. Winterkorn took notice of this memo at that time is not documented,” VW said in March.
Winterkorn was told directly about the diesel irregularities in a meeting July 27, 2015, where now-VW brand chairman Herbert Diess was also informed of the issue, VW has said.
“It is not clear whether these participants understood already at this point in time that the change in the software violated U.S. environmental regulations,” VW said in March. “Mr. Winterkorn asked for further clarification of the issue.”