Ex-VW CEO Winterkorn's fraud trial starts years after emissions scandal

Nine years after the diesel emissions scandal that rocked Volkswagen Group, the man running the automaker at the time is finally standing trial accused of fraud.

Former CEO Martin Winterkorn, 77, appeared in a German court on Sept. 3 to defend himself against several criminal allegations in a trial that is set to last 12 months. Along with four others, Winterkorn was charged in 2019 with fraud for having VW vehicles equipped with emissions-cheating technology.

The diesel affair sparked global outrage and triggered Winterkorn's departure from the company in September 2015, just days after U.S. authorities disclosed their investigation. VW has paid more than €30 billion ($33 billion) over the scandal.

While in the U.S. former VW managers were swiftly tried and convicted, Germany has taken years to bring people allegedly involved to justice. Winterkorn has always denied any allegations he knew about the scam.

His lawyer Felix Doerr told reporters on Sept. 2 that his client rejects the allegations. Winterkorn will address the court on Sept. 4, he added.

"We are confident that we'll be able to rebut the allegations," Doerr said. "We will do so by working chapter through chapter of this case."

Health issues

Winterkorn's charges were separated from the four other managers due to health issues that made him unfit to stand trial. The case against the other four has been ongoing since 2021, and more hearings have been scheduled until January 2025.

Winterkorn isn't charged with being involved in inventing the so-called defeat device but only with not stopping its use once he learned about it — thus allowing 9 million cars to be sold with the software in Europe and the U.S., causing a total of €100 million harm to customers.

The second indictment alleges that Winterkorn and two other then-board members informed markets too late about the diesel-emissions rigging.

While his two colleagues, ex-CEO Herbert Diess and VW Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch, settled in 2020, the criminal case against Winterkorn was dropped the following year on the grounds that prosecutors wanted to prioritize the fraud trial.

At the end of 2023 the court, acting at the request of prosecutors, decided to revive the market-manipulation indictment. A medical expert who examined Winterkorn concluded that the former CEO would be fit to stand trial by September.

The third charge was filed by Berlin prosecutors in 2021. They allege Winterkorn lied while testifying at a parliamentary inquiry in January 2017.

U.S. tests exposed high emissions

The trial started with prosecutors reading the indictments, detailing how and when Winterkorn first learned about the scam. They listed a memo from May 2014 that he received as part of a package of material he wanted to work through on a weekend. The document contained information about tests in the U.S. exposing that VW's diesel-cars emissions were 15 to 35 times higher than allowed, according to prosecutors.

As the situation in the U.S. began to heat up because California's clear-air agency Carb stepped in, VW managers discussed the situation with Winterkorn at a July 2015 meeting.

An executive told Winterkorn on the phone earlier that day that "we screwed" the U.S. authorities. According to the indictment, one presentation at the meeting was titled "What Carb doesn't yet know."

Winterkorn was also charged in the U.S. in 2018. But since Germany does not extradite its own citizens to countries outside the European Union, he remains safe from that prosecution if he stays within German borders.