The former leader is being tried in criminal court from Tuesday, September 3. He is notably accused of “organized fraud” for having allowed the sale of vehicles equipped with trick software aimed at minimizing pollutant emissions.
Nine years after “dieselgate”, the scandal of rigged engines at Volkswagen, the criminal trial of the former boss of the automobile company opens this Tuesday, September 3 in Germany. Martin Winterkorn, aged 77, is notably accused of “organized fraud”. In September 2015, the German company, Europe’s leading carmaker, admitted to rigging 11 million cars to display levels of nitrogen oxide pollution that were much lower than the reality. The former boss faces up to ten years in prison in the Brunswick court in the north of the country – not far from the manufacturer’s historic headquarters in Wolfsburg.
Martin Winterkorn’s trial, originally scheduled for fall 2021 along with four other former executives, has been postponed and dissociated due to the defendant’s fragile health. But questions remain about his ability to sustain the pace of a lengthy trial with hearings scheduled until mid-2025.
The engineer by training led the Volkswagen empire from 2007 to 2015, before resigning after the scandal broke. Under his leadership, the group and its brands VW, Audi, Skoda and Bentley, among others, grew from 330,000 to more than 600,000 employees, and sales soared from 6.2 million to 10 million vehicles worldwide.
The courts accuse him of allowing the sale of vehicles equipped with cheating software, despite his knowledge of their existence. The offence concerns 9 million vehicles, with damages estimated at several hundred million euros. The alleged fraud extends from 2006 to 2015, but the prosecution has only retained part of this period against the accused.
Martin Winterkorn will also face charges of perjury before a parliamentary inquiry in 2017, when he said he only learned of the rigged devices in September 2015. Prosecutors say he was informed earlier that year.
Finally, he is accused of market manipulation: once the engine fraud was discovered in the United States in the summer of 2015, Volkswagen risked heavy fines and a fall in its stock price. However, investors were not warned until September 22 of the same year, after the scandal broke. The central point of the trial will therefore be to determine when exactly the former CEO became aware of the massive fraud and how he handled this information.
Bill of 30 billion euros
The Volkswagen Group, for its part, “is not involved in the trial,” a spokesman for the group said. Since 2015, the company has had to pay out around 30 billion euros in reimbursements, compensation and legal fees, mainly in the United States where the manufacturer pleaded guilty to fraud and obstruction of justice.
The only senior Volkswagen executive to be tried so far, former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler, was sentenced in June 2023 in Munich. He received a suspended prison sentence and a fine of €1.1 million. During his trial, he pleaded guilty to failing to stop sales of the brand’s vehicles despite knowing about the fraudulent software installed on them.
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