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VW's Dieselgate: Ex-CEO market manipulation trial to resume

December 28, 2023

Automaker Volkswagen admitted to using software that cheated emissions tests in 2015. Ex-CEO Martin Winterkorn is to stand trial again in a market manipulation case after the proceedings were suspended two years ago.

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Former Volkswagen (VW) chief executive Martin Winterkorn
Former Volkswagen chief executive Martin Winterkorn has been accused of market manipulation and fraud as part of the 'Dieselgate' emissions cheating scandalImage: fossiphoto/IMAGO

Former Volkswagen (VW) chief executive Martin Winterkorn must stand trial again in an emissions cheating scandal, a German court said on Thursday.

The market manipulation charges against him had been provisionally dropped by the court in January 2021 but has now been revived. 

What is the case against Winterkorn?

In an indictment sheet filed by the public prosecutor's office in Braunschweig in 2019, the former executive is accused of failing to inform the capital market of the installation of an unauthorized defeat device in diesel engines.

Braunschweig lies in the northwestern state of Lower Saxony and is located near VW's headquarters in Wolfsburg.

The court dropped a market manipulation case in January 2021 on the basis the likely punishment was negligible compared with a potential fraud penalty.

The public prosecutor's office requested that the case be revived as it had not yet been possible to try Winterkorn on fraud charges. Prosecutors argued that the outcome of the proceedings could also "have an impact" on the fraud case.

Winterkorn has rejected the allegations, claiming that he knew nothing about the emissions cheating before the scandal became public in 2015.

The date of the trial has not been set.

Car exhaust in front of Volkswagen building in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany
VW has admitted to installing software on vehicles that allowed them to cheat emissions testsImage: Julian Stratenschulte/dpa/picture alliance

What is the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal?

Volkswagen has been mired in the "Dieselgate" since 2015, when the automaker admitted to US authorities that it had installed software in millions of vehicles that allowed them to cheat emissions tests.

The "defeat devices" installed by the firm meant that vehicles would comply with nitrogen oxide during tests but not on the road.

VW has estimated costs coming out of the consequences of the scandal at around €32 billion ($35 billion).

The first executive to be convicted in the scandal is Rupert Stadler, former CEO of VW subsidiary Audi, who received a suspended sentence and a fine in June. He was convicted of fraud after admitting to his involvement in the emissions cheating scheme.

sdi/lo (DPA, AFP)