Ex-Audi boss convicted of fraud in Germany in diesel emissions scandal

By Timo Kirez

GENEVA (AA) – A German court on Tuesday sentenced former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler to a suspended prison term of one year and nine months in the automaker’s diesel emissions scandal.

The Munich regional court found him guilty of fraud for stopping the sale of diesel cars with manipulated emissions values too late.

The two co-defendants, former head of engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz and engineer P., also received suspended sentences for fraud.

These are the first criminal sentences in Germany in the so-called "dieselgate" scandal uncovered in 2015, which has shaken the entire industry and caused billions in damages.

Hatz and engineer P. had confessed to manipulating diesel engines. In doing so, they complied with exhaust emissions values on the test bench, but throttled the emissions control on the road. Stadler confessed to having stopped the sale of manipulated cars too late.

The suspended sentences are conditional on the payment of large fines. The public prosecutor's office had already agreed to the suspended sentences for Stadler and P. as part of a plea bargain at trial, but in the case of Hatz demanded a prison sentence without probation.

Stadler become head of the Ingolstadt-based VW subsidiary in 2007, succeeding Martin Winterkorn, who moved to the top of the group at the time.

The US authorities uncovered the trickery in VW diesel engines at the end of 2015, and a little later also in large Audi diesel engines in models for the US market.

Despite increasing evidence of manipulation also in models sold in Europe, Stadler allowed sales to continue until the end of 2017.

From June 2018, he was held in pre-trial detention for four months on suspicion of collusion and subsequently resigned as Audi CEO and VW board member. He has since paid €4.1 million ($4.48 million) in damages to Volkswagen Group for breach of duty.