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Volkswagen executive has to pay 1.5 million euros

German justice has closed an investigation related to the scandal of rigged diesel engines targeting the chairman of the supervisory board of Volkswagen, Hans Dieter Pötsch, asking him, however, to pay 1.5 million euros to justice.

The investigation into financial market manipulation targeted Mr Pötsch in his capacity as director of Porsche SE, Volkswagen’s main shareholder.

He was accused of informing investors too late of the massive rigging of cars, equipped with software that made them appear less polluting in tests than they actually were.

This vast scandal of the “dieselgate”, which plunged the German automotive sector into a crisis from which it is struggling to emerge, erupted in September 2015 when Volkswagen admitted to having rigged 11 million vehicles.

In a press release, Porsche SE “confirms and welcomes the end of the investigation” of the Stuttgart prosecutor’s office and explains that it will pay the costs incurred to draw a line on this file.

The supervisory board of the company “still considers that the leaders of Porsche SE have not failed in their obligations to inform the financial markets” and “therefore considers the accusations unfounded”.

The prosecution also filed, without asking for payment this time, an investigation targeting Matthias Müller, former boss of the Volkswagen group, who arrived at the helm of the auto giant after the revelation of the scandal which had led to the resignation of Martin Winterkorn.

The latter is awaiting trial. He is accused in particular of “fraud” in the context of dieselgate, as is the former CEO of the Audi brand, Rupert Stadler, whose trial is due to open at the end of September.

But Volkswagen has already paid off a large part of the criminal and civil component.

Mr Pötsch and current Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess reached a similar agreement with the German prosecutor’s office in Brunswick at the end of May to avoid a trial for market manipulation, against 4.5 million euros each, paid by the manufacturer . No more investigations target them now.

The group will spend hundreds of millions of euros to compensate some 250,000 German customers. This is a small part of the total dieselgate bill for Volkswagen: it exceeds 30 billion euros, a large part of which is paid in the United States.

The last major civil component for Volkswagen and Porsche SE remains that of investors asking for compensation for the plunge in the share price of the two companies after the revelations.

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