Dieselgate
According to the latest rumors, it would seem that an agreement has finally been reached - between the Volkswagen Group and the now former CEO, Martin Winterkorn - regarding the damage the German company had to deal with following the so-called dieselgate scandal. . Therefore - according to what has emerged from Business Insider - the former CEO will have the obligation to "compensate" the Wolfsburg car manufacturer with compensation of 10 million euros. The news disclosed by the US newspaper stems from a draft agreement and most likely, the latter should become final - so it will have to be signed by the manager, by the Volkswagen Group together with other former managers who were part of the company -, within the next hours.Furthermore, it seems to have emerged that the supervisory board of the Wolfsburg house is planning to take stock of the agreement by next weekend. However, for the moment, there seem to be no official statements released by the German company on the sensitive issue, just as no statement has been made by the spokesman for the former CEO of the Volkswagen car manufacturer. It is good to remember that, last March, the German giant did not hold back in announcing - after following a long investigation - the guilt of manager Martin Winterkorn because he had not satisfied his "duty of care" regarding issues related to emissions that have affected some TDI engines of the Volkswagen brand.
Following these accusations - by the VW Group against Winterkorn, who resigned from his post on 23 September 2015 - the manager continued to declare himself not responsible for what happened regarding the dieselgate scandal. Despite this, the automotive giant found itself having to incur expenses that exceeded 32 billion euros, necessary for the payment of fines, but also legal costs and solving the problems related to the vehicles that were involved in the scandal.
Former VW CEO to Pay Roughly $12 Million in Damages Over Dieselgate Scandal
Former Volkswagen boss Martin Winterkorn has agreed to pay roughly €10 million ($12 million) to the carmaker, as the latter concluded that he had breached his duty of care. Winterkorn resigned as CEO on September 23, 2015, a week after the Dieselgate scandal broke.
In his resignation letter, he spoke about being in shock about the events that had transpired and “stunned” that misconduct on such a large scale could take place within the Volkswagen Group. He went on to accept responsibility for all those irregularities, and while he did get indicted for wire fraud and conspiracy in the United States, he’s yet to face any of those charges.Currently, both VW and Winterkorn aren’t making any statements. Still, according to Reuters, the two parties did agree on a settlement where the former CEO would pay the previously mentioned sum of money in damages. The settlement could reportedly get signed this week.
If some of you forgot everything that led up to this point, here’s a quick recap of how VW shot themselves in the foot while also taking a massive wrecking ball to the entire car industry and diesel technology in general.
Back in 2015, VW admitted to using illegal software to rig diesel engine tests in the United States, something that ended up costing them more than €32 billion ($39 billion) in fines, legal fees, and recalls. Their legal woes started in September of that year when the EPA got wind of what was happening during laboratory diesel emissions testing as far as the carmaker’s turbocharged direct injection diesel units (TDI) were concerned.
VW used software to manipulate those tests, which impacted roughly 11 million cars worldwide (500,000 of which were in the U.S.)—model years 2009 through 2015. On the bright side, this incident resulted in the electric car industry expanding tremendously. Had it not been for 'Dieselgate,' most likely you wouldn't be driving a VW ID.3 or an ID.4 right now.