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Volkswagen agrees on compensation with ex

2021-06-09T14:38:06.874Z


In the diesel scandal, the Volkswagen Group reached an agreement with former top managers on compensation. Insurers pay the majority of the sum. Former CEO Martin Winterkorn personally pays a double-digit million sum. Only Audi's former development director Ulrich Hackenberg refused the comparison.


Enlarge image

Disputes all allegations:

The former development director

Ulrich Hackenberg

did not want to agree to the settlement

proposal

Photo: REBECCA COOK / REUTERS

Former CEO

Martin Winterkorn

(74) and three other ex-top managers are paying record compensation to Volkswagen because of the diesel scandal. A large part of the total is due to specialized liability insurance. The affair of millions of fake nitrogen oxide emissions was exposed in September 2015 in the USA.

According to the final agreement, an amount of almost 288 million euros was agreed, the company said on Wednesday. The former CEO personally pays 11.2 million euros. Ex-Audi boss and VW board member

Rupert Stadler

(58) is to transfer 4.1 million euros himself. With him and Winterkorn it is about the violation of stock corporation law due diligence. The former Porsche board member

Wolfgang Hatz

(62) also contributes 1.5 million euros, the former Audi manager

Stefan Knirsch (55)

one million euros. Key points of the comparison had already leaked in the past few days.

There are also additional insurance benefits that are well above the private amounts.

According to VW, they add up to a total of 270 million euros.

In addition to the lawyers of the former managers, more than 30 insurers were involved in the negotiations.

Both the personal payments and the insured coverage would result in "by far the highest sum that such a consortium has ever put on the table in Germany," said negotiators.

The fundamental decision to draw Winterkorn and some of his colleagues to "Dieselgate" to take financial responsibility had already been made at the end of March.

Now the details are in.

Hackenberg rejects the settlement

VW had also demanded compensation from ex-head of development Ulrich Hackenberg.

However, he was "not ready for an agreement", which is why "legal steps" should now be prepared against him.

According to inside information, the group had offered the former Audi development director to pay a settlement sum in the small single-digit million range.

Since Hackenberg rejects the settlement, it is now a double-digit million amount.

Hackenberg was one of Winterkorn's closest confidants and was one of the central figures in development for a long time.

First at the VW brand, then under the then Audi boss Winterkorn until the end of 2006 at Audi, then - again under Winterkorn - in corporate development in Wolfsburg.

However, Hackenberg only became a member of the board when he returned to Audi in July 2013.

Hackenberg was given leave of absence in September 2015, shortly after the diesel scandal became known. At that time, the manager was already in a dispute with Winterkorn and then officially left Audi in December 2015. The Munich public prosecutor, who is investigating the diesel scandal at the VW subsidiary in Ingolstadt, indicted Hackenberg last summer, together with two other former Audi board members. The prosecutors accuse Hackenberg of fraud, indirect false certification and criminal advertising, among other things. But he rejects all accusations and sees himself innocent.

The former head of development of the VW brand,

Heinz-Jacob

Neußer

(61),

is also excluded from the comparison

.

VW had already filed claims against him, against which Neusser is defending himself in labor law proceedings.

General assembly still has to approve resolutions

The agreed payments, which were discussed outside of civil or criminal law processes, could put a provisional end in the years of processing individual responsibilities in the emissions scandal.

The general meeting scheduled for July 22nd has yet to approve the resolutions.

However, further questions have to be clarified before the courts themselves in ongoing or upcoming proceedings.

After the nitrogen oxide manipulation on diesel engines in the USA in autumn 2015, proceedings began around the world.

Criminal justice and consumer advocates also dealt with the origin of the scandal, which plunged the auto industry into a crisis of confidence and has cost the VW Group well over 30 billion euros so far.

Relatively early on, Volkswagen admitted to the US Department of Justice that it was fundamentally guilty of deceiving customers and authorities.

However, the supervisory board also commissioned the law firm Gleiss Lutz to investigate internal processes in the period before the diesel affair.

This examination lasted more than five years.

Winterkorn had assured that before the allegations became known, they had always behaved correctly to the best of their knowledge.

He "did everything that was necessary and did not neglect anything that would have led to the damage being avoided or minimized".

rei / DPA / Reuters

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-06-09

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