Volkswagen irks Dieselgate investigators

Volkswagen has refused to hand over emails, text messages and written notes to a number of state-based attorneys general – because, it says, to do so would break German law.

The US Justice Department last week blistered Volkswagen by insisting the car-maker had “impeded and obstructed” its investigators and provided “misleading information”.

Other investigators representing US states like New York and Connecticut this week suggested Volkswagen’s stance was impeding their ability to understand which senior executives were in communication about the scandal, knew about it or propagated it.

A Volkswagen spokesman today said the company could not officially comment as investigations were ongoing.

Significantly, the accusations turn up the pressure on Volkswagen as its new senior management team arrives in the United States for the first time since the Dieselgate scandal blew up in September last year.

So far, Volkswagen has left its US head, Michael Horn, to face investigators, legislators, authorities and the media, but new Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Müller and new head of Development, Ulrich Eichhorn, will be in Detroit on Monday for the city’s annual motor show.

Senior Volkswagen Group personnel had stayed away from the US – most notably November’s Los Angeles motor show – over fears of summary legal repercussions.

That changed when new Volkswagen brand CEO Herbert Diess presented two concept cars at last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, but Diess was at BMW during the gestation of the Dieselgate crisis and was never mentioned as a target of investigators.

The investigating Attorneys general and the DOJ are individually trying to find the guilty parties in the scandal, which saw the Volkswagen Group sell 11 million four-cylinder diesel Audis, Seats, Skodas and Volkswagens, fitted with computer software designed to cheat NOx emissions laws, around the world between 2009 and 2015.

New York and Connecticut investigators are taking the lead on a 48-state investigation into the scandal, while California (whose California Air Review Board was central to uncovering the cheat) and Texas have gone their own way.

Volkswagen is still conducting its own investigation, led by US law firm Jones Day, while the German Braunschweig prosecutor’s office also has an open investigation into the scandal.

German prosecutors have raided Volkswagen’s offices in Braunschweig and Wolfsburg several times to uncover official correspondence, emails and text messages, while Italian investigators have raided the offices of Volkswagen Italia in Verona and the Audi-owned Lamborghini in Sant’Agata Bolognese.

Braunschweig prosecutor’s office spokesman Klaus Ziehe told the New York Times that it had received full cooperation from Volkswagen in compliance with German law.

“We are not and do not want to be dependent on that which Volkswagen gives us,” he said.

“We can’t complain about our cooperation with the company. We have the impression that we have received everything that we have specifically requested.”

German law, particularly the Federal Data Protection Act, makes a clear distinction between access to data from inside Germany and from outside the European Union, making it extremely difficult for overseas investigators. Breaches of these laws by the US NSA and other covert bodies were amongst the revelations from the Edward Snowdon files.

The accusations from US investigators come on the heels of reports that Volkswagen would have to buy back more than 100,000 Dieselgate cars in the US, which has tougher NOx limits than Europe.

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