Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler admits involvement in diesel scandal
Former Audi chief executive Rupert Stadler admitted his involvement in the diesel emissions scandal in court on Tuesday in exchange for a suspended sentence.
Stadler has agreed to a plea deal filed earlier this month by the Munich district court for a suspended sentence and fine of €1.1m ($1.21m).
If Stadler chose not to admit to his role, he would face a prison sentence of between one and two and a half years.
What’s the scandal?
The scandal dates back to 2015, when the US Environmental Protection Agency found the German automaker selling vehicles with a defeat device to cheat emissions between 2014 and 2015.
Since then, the scandal has cost Volkswagen billions of dollars in settlements and forced it to recall millions of vehicles.
The European Commission in a statement in 2021 said that Volkswagen sold 8.5 million vehicles in the European Union that were equipped with a device for handling tests.
Volkswagen had marketed its diesel vehicles as clean when, in fact, they were big polluters. The European Court of Justice found Volkswagen’s actions illegal in December 2020.
rm/wd (AFP, dpa)
Source: DW
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