Skip to main content

VW Execs Lawyer Up Following US Justice Department Pressure

With its current leadership on its way out, the US Justice Department has been ramping up its efforts to build a case against Volkswagen’s top brass following the TDI scandal.

The department has been meeting with managers and US authorities have even traveled to Germany to gather evidence in the criminal case against Volkswagen’s executives.

Following accusations of a lack of accountability following the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Justice Department has been tasked with keeping the executives behind corporate misdeeds accountable.

As a result, many VW executives have begun hiring US criminal defense attorneys.

“Volkswagen continues to cooperate with the Department of Justice as we work to resolve remaining matters in the United States,” Eric Felber, a Justice Department spokesman, told Bloomberg.

It isn’t clear just who the criminal case will focus on, though, as an investigation conducted by a US law firm at VW’s request, found that the top brass did not know about the emissions rigging.

So far, one former software engineer has pleaded guilty in the case, but otherwise the only casualties of the case have been the executives who resigned or were forced out of the company, like former CEO Martin Winterkorn.

VW meanwhile maintains the innocence of its executives. “The then and current board of management of Volkswagen AG had, at any rate, no knowledge of the use of unlawful engine-management software at the time,” wrote Volkswagen in its annual report for 2015.

All of this, plus the trouble of trying Germans (a country that cannot constitutionally extradite its citizens outside of the EU) means that a resolution of the criminal case against VW is unlikely to come before president-elect Trump takes office.

His likely pick for Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, though, has said in the past that he would go after a large company if there was evidence of criminal conduct.

[source: Bloomberg]

The post VW Execs Lawyer Up Following US Justice Department Pressure appeared first on VWVortex.



from VWVortex http://ift.tt/2gtoNtg
via IFTTT
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Saying Goodbye to the CC V6

For all its size and its global reach, Volkswagen is still, in many ways, a deeply human company. There was, for instance, the Bugatti Veyron an ego project if ever there was one. Then the purchase of Ducati, a move most called folly. And then there was the Phaeton, the Volkswagen that most folks can’t afford. Not only were these moves all strange, I’m sure that they made VW’s accountants furious. None of them made good business sense, but they were all deeply interesting and they all are evidence of the heart that beats at the center of VW. Among these follies is the CC, a car that everyone agrees is rakishly handsome, but that no one really wanted to buy. The car couldn’t last, but the world is brighter for its having been in it. With the approach debut of the Arteon, it seems like a good time to look back on its sadly departing predecessor. The version I drove, because I live in Canada, is a V6 Wolfsburg Edition, which apparently isn’t available in the States. Nor is the V6, not as...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan

Filed under: Government/Legal , Green , Mitsubishi , Fuel Efficiency , Japan Mitsubishi says its shady fuel-economy test practices may have been used on all vehicles it sells and has sold in Japan. Continue reading Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan Mitsubishi admits it lied about MPG ratings for all vehicles in Japan originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 11 May 2016 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink  |  Email this  |  Comments from Autoblog Volkswagen http://ift.tt/21X3bHv
Post a Comment
Read more

More 3.0-Liter TDI Settlement Details Expected by January 31

Volkswagen and the TDI Plaintiff’s Steering Committee were in court today for another status conference following the agreement in principal reached earlier this week. Little new information was given at the conference held before Judge Charles Breyer today, but the court ordered the parties to develop a formal settlement agreement, class action notices, and a class notice plan by January 31, 2017. For now, though, owners still don’t know how much to expect in compensation. Elizabeth Cabraser, lead Counsel for the Plaintiff’s Steering Committee reaffirmed in a statement today that the compensation would be “substantial.” The potential cost to Volkswagen is widely reported to exceed $1 billion, though, with an additional $225 million going into an environmental trust to help offset excess emissions. Buy back offers are still only expected for the oldest 20,000 of the roughly 80,000 VW Group vehicles sold in America with the 3.0-liter TDI engine. Those vehicles are mostly SUVs, like ...
Post a Comment
Read more