VW News: As the Diesel Emits: Former Chairman Says Top Managers Knew About Cheat, Volkswagen Threatens Legal Action

[William Maley]

The blame game over the Volkswagen diesel emission scandal continues with the former chairman Ferdinand Piëch saying that Volkswagen's top brass knew about the cheating months before it came to light.

German newspaper Bild reported yesterday that Piëch told prosecutors that he informed Martin Winterkorn and four other members of Volkswagen's supervisory board about the possible cheating with their diesel engines. The other members include,

• Stephan Weil, prime minister of the German state of Lower Saxony
• Bernd Osterloh, works council chief
• Berthold Huber, former IG Metall union head
• Wolfgang Porsche

These members have "unequivocally and emphatically" reject the allegations laid forth by Piëch. Volkswagen is none to happy about these accusations either and is considering possible legal options. 

"The Board of Management will carefully weigh the possibility of measures and claims against Mr. Piëch," the company said in a statement. 

A spokeswoman for Braunschweig prosecutors declined to comment when asked by Reuters about this story.

It should be noted there is a bit of bad blood between Piëch and Volkswagen. In April 2015, Piëch was ousted as chairman for Volkswagen after a power struggle between him and Winterkorn. This might be Piëch wanting to settle some old scores and cause more problems for the company he once led.

Source: Bild via Bloomberg, Reuters

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[G. David Felt]

Blame game all around to see who can survive and avoid jail time and fines.

[Drew Dowdell]

Wow! Piech is out to play dirty!  I thought the whole reason for the cheating was because Piech was so insistent on making these diesels work without AdBlue in the first place