Volkswagen AG’s ex-Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn rejected allegations that he duped customers and failed to tell markets on time about diesel emission cheating, adding that he was never properly informed about the scale of the scam.
Winterkorn told German judges on Wednesday that he isn’t guilty of fraud and rebuffed accusations that he knew about the rigging of diesel emissions in VW autos that made them look environmentally friendlier than they were as early as May 2014.
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“I’m not an engine developer, I’m not an emissions control specialist and I’m not a software expert who took care of engines and emission cleaning systems,” Winterkorn said on the second day of his criminal trial. “At the time, I didn’t understand what the technical problems were, nor did I realize that VW had already been on the US market with illegal software applications for years.”
Nine years after the diesel emission scandal Winterkorn, 77, is on trial in Braunschweig over the affair that sparked global outrage and triggered his departure from the company in September 2015, just days after US authorities disclosed their investigation. VW has paid out more than €30 billion ($33 billion) over the scandal.
Winterkorn isn’t charged with being involved in inventing the so-called defeat device but with committing fraud by not stopping it once he learned about it in May of 2014 — thus allowing 9 million cars to be sold with the software in Europe and the US, causing a total of €100 million harm to customers.
A second charge alleges that Winterkorn informed markets too late about the diesel emission rigging. The third alleges Winterkorn lied while testifying at a parliamentary inquiry in January 2017.
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His job as a CEO was to make long-term strategic decisions and not to micromanage technical problems, the former boss told the judges. The VW brand had a huge division for engine development and he was dependent on its mangers to inform him comprehensively and truthfully – which didn’t happen in the diesel affair, he said.
Even in mid-2015, when U.S. authorities were investigated, the exact details of the scam weren’t fully disclosed to him and he wasn’t involved in the discussions with regulators. He also thought there was a software solution at hand that would have settled the issue. That’s why he – but also no one else at the company – didn’t see any need to inform markets about it, he said.
VW sold just about 60,000 to 80,000 vehicles a-year in that segment in the U.S. The number was low compared to VW’s total sales in the U.S. and almost insignificant on a global scale, said Winterkorn. So the allegation he was afraid of losing profits was baseless, he added.
“Had I realized that an illegal software was behind the high emissions and that there was a considerable legal risk for VW, I would have intervened immediately and stopped any further sales and deliveries of diesel vehicles in the U.S.,” he said.
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