Ex-Audi boss Stadler convicted of fraud in diesel scandal: “The Western world in particular experienced a major slump in financial assets in 2022”

The first criminal judgments in the handling of the diesel scandal have been passed. The Munich regional court sentenced ex-Audi boss Rupert Stadler to one year and nine months in prison on probation for fraud. With that, he leaves the room a free man.

The two co-defendants – the former head of engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz and the engineer P. – received suspended sentences for fraud. The diesel scandal that came to light in Germany in 2015 shocked the entire industry and caused billions in damage.

High parole

Hatz was sentenced to a suspended sentence of two years, P. to a suspended sentence of one year and nine months. The verdicts are not yet final.

In addition, all three defendants must pay high probation conditions: Stadler 1.1 million euros, Hatz 400,000 euros and P. 50,000 euros. They also have to bear the costs of the procedure, which run into the millions.

The proceedings against a fourth defendant, who had confessed early on as a key witness, were discontinued in April on payment of a monetary condition.

Late confession

As a former Audi boss, Stadler is the most prominent of the three convicts, but the accusations against Hatz and P. weigh more heavily: they said they ensured that the large diesel engines met the limit values ​​on the test bench, but not on the away.

The aim was to save the later installation of larger Adblue exhaust gas cleaning tanks after the group’s technicians made a miscalculation. At the time, head of department P. would have demanded “intelligent solutions” from his employees in order to meet the expectations from above that could hardly be met.

Stadler had maintained his innocence for years. The 60-year-old admitted in May that after the scandal broke in the US in 2015, he had stopped selling cars with manipulated exhaust gas values ​​in Germany only after the court pointed to a threatening prison sentence. way too late.

Although he has now been convicted as a fraud, he can leave the court a free man. The arrest warrants against all three suspects, who had previously been suspended under conditions, were lifted.

Sales continued for years

Stadler became head of the VW subsidiary in 2007. Under his leadership, Audi doubled sales and operating profit. At the end of 2015, the US authorities discovered fraud in VW diesel engines, and a little later also in large Audi diesel engines in models for the US market.

Despite mounting evidence of tampering with the models sold in Europe, Stadler allowed sales to continue here until the end of 2017. From June 2018, he was imprisoned for four months due to the risk of conspiracy, until he stepped down as Audi boss and VW board member. He has now paid 4.1 million euros in damages to the Volkswagen Group for dereliction of duty.

More processes

Four former top executives of the Volkswagen Group have been on trial in Braunschweig since September 2021 for possible fraud in the diesel affair. The case against VW boss Martin Winterkorn is on hold due to illness.

The Munich prosecutor’s office had already indicted four other former Audi executives in 2020 – three former colleagues on the Stadler board of directors and the long-standing head of the main diesel engine department at Audi. It is still unclear if and when this process will begin. It could take place before the same chamber of Judge Weickert. The Munich public prosecutor’s office is investigating nine other suspects.

(aeg/sda/awp/dpa)