Prosecutors free to target Volkswagen

Germany’s highest court has dismissed a Volkswagen Group lawsuit seeking to keep its own Dieselgate investigation secret.

The German car-maker had sought to ban the Munich public prosecutor from using documents and data it seized in a raid on its investigative law firm, Jones Day, over its emissions-cheating scandal that saw more than 11 million illegal cars sold from 2008 to 2015.

The Karlsruhe Federal Constitutional Court has declared that the attorney-client privilege that would typically protect the Jones Day documentation from scrutiny does not apply to internal investigations.

This ruling effectively declared the Munich prosecutor’s raid on the Jones Day offices completely legal.

While a Volkswagen spokesman refused to comment on the ruling, the company released a statement through evidently gritted teeth.

“Volkswagen AG welcomes the fact that the Federal Constitutional Court decision has now provided clarity with regard to the outstanding legal issues, even though the Court did not share Volkswagen AG’s understanding of the law,” the statement read.

“The companies of the Volkswagen Group will continue to cooperate with the federal authorities, giving due consideration to the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court.”

Bavarian prosecutors have been on a roll in attacking Germany’s car-makers, raiding the headquarters of Audi in March last year just three hours before the start of its annual earnings conference, doing the same thing to BMW this March and jailing Audi chairman Rupert Stadler last month.

Volkswagen applied to prevent the prosecutors from accessing information in the report seized from the Jones Day office, while Jones Day itself filed its own complaint, which was also rejected.