Audi boss stays on

Audi’s supervisory board has unanimously voted to extend Chairman Rupert Stadler's tenure by an extra five years.

Dogged by controversy in recent months, Stadler’s contract extension came with the critical proviso for Audi take on a new Chief Compliance Officer, reporting directly to Chief Financial Officer, Axel Strotbek.

Ironically, confirmation of Stadler's new term came on the same day the Volkswagen Group announced finalisation of its US$1.2 billion ($A1.62 billion) settlement with the North American Department of Justice after 78,000 Audi-developed 3.0-litre V6 TDI engines were sold with emissions-cheating software.

As Audi Chairman since 2007, it's clear the engines were developed under Stadler’s watch. The Audi software came to light after the US Environmental Protection Agency found the Volkswagen Group’s similar Dieselgate emissions cheat on the 1.6 and 2.0-litre turbodiesel four-cylinder engines.

The Audi-designed and built V6 turbodiesels were fitted to most of Audi’s larger models and SUVs, and also those of both Porsche and Volkswagen.

However, Stadler was not forced to leave the company, with most outsiders accepting his argument that he was a ‘finance guy’ rather than an engineer and could not reasonably have known what was in one line of computer code out of 20 million lines.

Then just three hours before last month’s press conference to present Audi’s 2016 financial year results, Bavarian public prosecutors raided Audi’s offices in both Ingolstadt and Neckarsulm, along with houses of many senior officials.

An urbane gentleman, Stadler’s management credibility was further eroded when he lured former Audi senior engineer Stefan Knirsch away from a Daimler contract to take over as Audi’s head of development from the suspended Dr Ulrich Hackenberg. Knirsch lasted a matter of months before being unceremoniously dumped out of the Volkswagen Group due to his alleged links to Dieselgate.

But that’s not how Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Mueller saw it.

“With this unanimous vote, the Supervisory Board once again expresses its confidence that Mr. Stadler will continue to develop Audi successfully,” he said.

The addition of a new Chief Compliance Officer, sitting one step beneath the board level, also increases Strotbek’s board role to Finance, IT and Integrity.

For its part, the Audi General Works Council (or, workers’ union) Chairman, Peter Mosch (also a member of the Audi Supervisory Board), had strings attached to his vote for Stadler.

“We employees attach very clear conditions to this contract extension. Rupert Stadler must safeguard employment at our sites in Germany for the long term, ensure good utilisation of our plants’ capacities and systematically promote technologies that guarantee a successful future for our company.”