VW CEO knew of dieselgate cheat, says fired engine boss

Volkswagen’s former head of engine development has told a German court that the Volkswagen Group’s former CEO, Dr Martin Winterkorn, ordered executives to cover up the ‘dieselgate’ emissions-cheating scandal.

Heinz-Jakob Neusser (pictured), the board member in charge of engine development as the scandal unfolded, gave evidence accusing Dr Winterkorn of telling managers to hide evidence by only partly disclosing details of the scandal to US authorities.

“Winterkorn decided and ordered it, and there was no further discussion,” Neusser said.

Dr Winterkorn has himself been charged with fraud and violating competition law by German authorities over the scandal, along with Neusser, former Volkswagen diesel engine development boss Falko Rudolph and ex-diesel developer Rudolph Krebs. He has also been charged with conspiracy by the US Department of Justice.

Neusser, three times sacked by the Volkswagen Group as well as being charged over Dieselgate in both Germany and the US, insisted the orders took place in a meeting in Volkswagen’s headquarters at Wolfsburg two months before the scandal broke.

Neusser’s allegations also implicate current Volkswagen Group CEO Dr Herbert Diess, though Diess had only just joined the board from the BMW Group days earlier.

Neusser’s allegations come not as part of his own criminal defence against German prosecutors’ charges but, bizarrely, as part of his own wrongful dismissal suit against the Volkswagen Group in a Labour Court. The court will rule on the claim on November 25.

Neusser hasn’t left Germany since being charged by US authorities two years ago and hasn’t before spoken publicly of the events leading up to the $US30 billion scandal unfolding, though his career timelines put him near the epicenter of it.

In his own defence, he insisted he only became aware of the emissions cheat on July 25 at the meeting where the “irregularities” were discussed.

He alleged that his advice in the meeting was that Volkswagen should fully disclose the cheat, though his suggestion wasn’t put into the minutes or into a report that summed up the meeting for further discussion.

He tabled no evidence to back up his assertions in his attempt to recover his €45,000 a month job or be compensated for it.

Known as the ‘Damage Table’, the meeting set the tone for how the Volkswagen Group would defend itself against allegations of the diesel emissions cheat it knew it had committed.

Volkswagen’s lawyer, Thomas Mueller-Bonanni, told the Braunschweig Court that Neusser’s was just one of several versions of the meeting’s proceedings and insisted the former engine boss wasn’t credible.

“It’s totally far-fetched that in such a situation, two board members would make a clear order to deceive US authorities,” Mueller-Bonanni said in response.

“Instead, the issue was given back to the responsible units.”

The key one of those responsible units was Neusser’s development office, which lead Volkswagen to respond that he was trying to “downplay his own significant responsibility for the diesel crisis”.

It went on to point out that far from fixing the cheat, Neusser went on to approve an update to it later.

Volkswagen sacked him in August 2018 because, it insisted, he didn’t get on top of the emissions cheat when he became head of engine development in 2011.

He was sacked again a month later because he didn’t return one of his four company cars, then he was dismissed yet again in June this year in response to the charges brought against him by German prosecutors.