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Shareholder meeting postponed

February 5, 2016

German carmaker Volkswagen has said it's going to hold both its next earnings conference and shareholder meeting at a later stage than originally planned amid ongoing investigations into its pollution scandal.

https://p.dw.com/p/1HqTa
VW logo
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Kappeler

VW confirmed Friday it would not publish its 2015 annual earnings report on March 10 as previously planned. Nor would it hold its annual shareholder meeting on April 21, as originally scheduled.

The Wolfsburg-based automaker said the decision to postpone both events was due to an ongoing probe into its global emissions-cheating scam.

The company added the reasoning behind the postponements was "to achieve the best possible transparent and reliable outcome for its shareholders and stakeholders."

Getting to grips

Volkswagen noted it would set new dates due to remaining open questions "and the resulting valuation calculations relating to the diesel emissions issue."

"The diesel issue" is the euphemism that the carmaker introduced to describe the deepest crisis in its history after it was forced to admit last September that it had installed defeat devices into 11 million diesel cars worldwide.

The software used was designed to skew emissions data during regulatory testing. The scandal has already hurt VW sales and is likely to cost the carmaker untold billions in regulatory and legal fines plus compensation.

Volkswagen emphasized a much anticipated report on its own internal investigations into the scandal would not be affected by different dates being set for the full-year earnings report and the annual shareholder meeting.

hg/sri (dpa, AFP)