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MUNICH (dpa-AFX) - The Munich Regional Court has sentenced former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler and two co-defendants to heavy suspended sentences for fraud. They must also pay a total of 1.5 million euros to the judicial treasury and charitable associations, the court ruled Tuesday after nearly three years of trial. It is the first criminal verdict in Germany in the diesel scandal that has shaken the entire industry and caused billions in damages.
All three defendants had made confessions. The Economic Criminal Chamber sentenced Stadler to one year and nine months' imprisonment on probation and payment of 1.1 million euros. He had not instigated the manipulation of the exhaust gas purification of large Audi diesel engines, but had stopped the sale of the cars far too late. By July 2016 at the latest, he had recognized that they "could contain functions critical to registration," said presiding judge Stefan Weickert. Nevertheless, he had not informed the dealers and had still allowed 17,177 manipulated cars to be sold by the beginning of 2018. He was thus responsible for damages of 41 million euros, he said.
According to the verdict, the former head of engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz and engineer P. had ensured that defeat devices were installed in the exhaust gas control systems from 2008 onwards. This meant that the cars complied with limits on the test bench, but not on the road. The aim was to save the subsequent installation of larger Adblue tanks for exhaust gas purification after the Group's technicians had miscalculated. At the time, the Volkswagen Group wanted to conquer the US market with the "Clean Diesel. The developers were under time and success pressure, and department head P. demanded "intelligent solutions" from his employees in order to meet the barely attainable expectations.
Hatz was sentenced to a suspended sentence of two years and payment of 400,000 euros, P. to one year and nine months probation and 50,000 euros probation. The chamber charged them with damages of 2.3 billion euros, because a large proportion of the vehicles had been sold in the USA and had only scrap value there under US law after the series of tricks had been uncovered. For cars sold in Germany, the court applied a loss in value of only 5 percent.
The prosecution had already agreed to the suspended sentences for Stadler and P. as part of a plea bargain and only demanded a prison sentence without probation in the case of Hatz. The sentences are not yet final. In the case of Hatz, the public prosecutor's office will examine the reasons for the verdict and decide on appeals within a week, said spokeswoman Andrea Grape.
The trial had begun in September 2020. In 171 trial days, the chamber had heard more than 190 witnesses and obtained four expert opinions. The case against a fourth defendant had already been dropped in April on payment of a fine. He had been an engineer in P.'s department and had turned state witness after an early confession.
The 60-year-old Stadler has now been convicted of fraud, but can leave the court a free man. For years he had maintained his innocence and said he had been hoodwinked by his technicians. It was only after the court pointed out the threat of a prison sentence that he admitted in May that he had intervened too late, even with the European models, despite increasing evidence of trickery.
Stadler had become head of the Ingolstadt-based VW subsidiary in 2007 as successor to Martin Winterkorn, who moved to the top of the group. As of June 2018, he was in custody on suspicion of collusion - for four months, until his resignation as Audi boss and VW board member. He has since paid the Volkswagen Group €4.1 million in damages for breach of duty.
Prosecutor Nico Petzka does not see the three defendants as the main culprits in the diesel scandal. It was doubtful whether there could be a main culprit or culprits at all "when so many people involved in the company are running in the wrong direction," he had said in his closing argument.
In Braunschweig, four former top managers of the Volkswagen Group have been on trial since September 2021 for possible fraud in the diesel scandal. The case against Winterkorn is on hold due to illness.
The Munich public prosecutor's office has already charged four other former Audi managers in 2020 - three former colleagues on Stadler's board of management and the long-time head of the main diesel engine department at Audi. Whether and when this trial will begin is still open. It could take place before the same chamber of Judge Weickert. The Munich public prosecutor's office is still investigating nine other defendants./rol/DP/nas
