Former CEO of Volkswagen Group Audi, Ruper Stadler, was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months in prison and fined 1.1 million euros for negligent fraud in the diesel scandal. The Munich court, where the case was heard, decided to postpone the prison sentence.
Rupert Stadler, the former chief executive (CEO) of Audi, the luxury car brand of the German automaker Volkswagen Group (VW), was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months in prison by the Munich District Court for negligent fraud in the diesel scandal.
In the statement made by the Munich District Court, it was reported that Stadler, who was tried as part of the diesel scandal investigation, was sentenced to 1 year and 9 months in prison.
Stadler, whose prison sentence was suspended, became the first Volkswagen Group Board Member to be convicted of negligent fraud in the diesel scandal.
The court announced that Stadler was fined 1.1 million euros and that some of this money will be transferred to the German treasury and some to non-governmental organizations.
The court had previously announced that 60-year-old Stadler would face a suspended sentence if he made a comprehensive confession about the diesel scandal and paid 1.1 million euros.
The Munich Prosecutor’s Office, carrying out the diesel scandal investigations, accepted this.
In the lawsuit, which has been ongoing since September 2020, Stadler defended his innocence in the diesel scandal. In March 2023, the case reached a turning point when the court made it clear that Stadler would face jail time if he did not confess.
Stadler, who is also a member of the VW Group Board of Directors, announced in early May that he would confess.
Former Audi Engine Development Manager Wolfgang Hatz, who was tried together with Stadler, was sentenced to 2 years in prison and 400,000 euros in fines, while senior engineer Giovanni Pamio was sentenced to one year and nine months in prison and a fine of 50,000 euros. Prison sentences were suspended.
The Munich Prosecutor’s Office claimed that 2 executives were selling diesel-powered vehicles in Europe whose exhaust system was manipulated with illegal software. The prosecution accused Stadler of failing to stop the sale of Audi and Volkswagen cars, despite being aware of the manipulation since September 2015.
Stadler was suspended from his position by Volkswagen in 2018 due to the diesel scandal investigation.
According to the Munich District Court’s decision, Stadler is responsible for the sale of 17,177 manipulated diesel cars and damages of 41 million euros. The judges charged Stadler and Hatz with damages of 2.3 billion euros.
The US Environmental Protection Agency announced in September 2015 that Volkswagen had manipulated emissions tests and that the company’s diesel vehicles were polluting the environment 40 times higher than normal.
Acknowledging that misleading software was used in the emission tests of approximately 11 million diesel-powered vehicles worldwide, Volkswagen was fined a high amount by the US court.
The diesel scandal was widely criticized for damaging the image of the country’s automobile manufacturing base in the German public.