Dieselgate: VW Board clears itself
Internal investigation clears Volkswagen board of Dieselgate responsibilityVolkswagen’s eight-month, ongoing investigation into its crippling Dieselgate emissions crisis has cleared its management board of any wrongdoing in the lead-up to the scandal.
The investigation, by US law firm Jones Day, is ongoing but has thus far cleared the then-top management of “Serious and Manifest” errors that could have led to the crisis that affected more than 11 million cars globally.
The management and supervisory boards of Volkswagen plan to use the interim report from Jones Day as ammunition to ask its shareholders to ratify their actions for the last year.
The ratification of the boards’ actions is normal, in normal years, but the requesting ratification at the annual meeting on June 22 is akin to asking for a pass mark for the way the boards have handled the Dieselgate scandal. Few external observers would suggest they’ve handled it well enough to warrant a pass mark.
“Although the investigation by Jones Day is still ongoing, according to information currently available, no serious or manifest breaches of duty of any serving or former members of the Board of Management have been established that would stand in the way of granting ratification at this time,” Volkswagen said.
Yet, not only did the boards deliver the Volkswagen Group a record loss for 2015, but they have still to deliver a fix for the United States, they have still to cover the legal claims stemming from the crisis and they have lifted the cash reserved for dealing with Dieselgate from €7 billion to €16.2 billion.
Even in that crushing amount of cash (just €6 billion shy of depleting the Volkswagen Group’s entire cash reserve), they have not set aside anything in case the BaFin (which investigates irregularities in dealings on the Germany stock exchange) investigation into the timing of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate disclosures turns sour.
It also ignores the savage shareholder backlash about executive remuneration, and in particular the reluctance of board members to slash their pay to reflect the gravity of the company’s position.
The crisis has seen the company’s CEO, its US boss and its former head of powertrain development resign, while its former head of development has retired.
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