Sacked Audi boss in line for big payout

The Volkswagen Group could be forced to pay Audi’s imprisoned Chairman and CEO Rupert Stadler €8m (almost $A13m) to step down – but only if he’s cleared of involvement in the Dieselgate emissions-cheating scandal.

Jailed in June by Munich prosecutors just a month after signing a new five-year contract to head up Audi, Stadler resigned effective immediately yesterday after reaching a settlement with both the Volkswagen Group and Audi.

A statement from the Volkswagen Group stated that Stadler was resigning because he unable to fulfil his duties as a board member and needed to concentrate on his own legal defence.

It added that the settlement (or “contractual execution”) depended on the course and outcome of the criminal proceedings.

The Volkswagen Group and Audi had been desperate to put distance between itself and Stadler, who remained the premium brand’s CEO despite his pre-trial incarceration.

Stadler was jailed after prosecutors allegedly heard him attempting to influence witnesses on a bugged telephone call.

German newspaper Handelsblatt reported yesterday (Oct 2) that Volkswagen will pay the 55-year-old Stadler €1.5m to keep him out of the hands of any competitor until the end of 2019 and another €1m in backdated pay and bonuses.

Stadler had been on the board of Audi since 2003, its Chairman since 2007 and a member of the Volkswagen Group’s board of management since 2010.

Stadler has an estimated personal wealth in excess of €100m and annual reports showed his baseline contract with Audi to be worth about €15m and his Volkswagen Group board seat brought him another €5.25m in 2017.

His interim replacement as CEO has been former Sales director, Bram Schott, though Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess has tapped his former BMW colleague Markus Duesmann to take over when the latter’s non-compete clause expires in September next year.

Duesmann has resigned from his post as BMW’s board member for purchasing due to “personal reasons” and has previously served (twice) as its head of powertrain development – once under Diess.

Volkswagen has already been criticized for paying out more than €13m to former powertrain development head, Wolfgang Hatz, when it sacked him over Dieselgate.

The group has already paid out significant amounts to an executive it brought in to clean up its culture at the height of the crisis.

The Volkswagen Group paid lawyer Christine Hohmann-Dennhardt €6.3m to buy her out of her Daimler contract and parachute her in as its board member in charge of Integrity and Legal Affairs, then paid her another €6.9m to leave 13 months later.