SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Lawsuits Say Top Volkswagen Officials Knew of Emissions Scandal for Years
One executive who found themselves under scrutiny from lawmakers wrote to colleagues, 'Come up with the story, please!'
Jul 19, 2016
Three attorneys general investigating Volkswagen's emissions scandal say the plan to cheat pollution tests was an organized plot spanning more than a decade that implicates officials at the top of the company's corporate chain, the New York Times reports.
For the first time, lawsuits from New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts charge Volkswagen's chief executive, Matthias Muller, of being aware of decisions as far back as 2006 not to build Audi cars with equipment needed to meet U.S. air quality standards.
The Times' Jack Ewing and Hiroko Tabuchi report:
Volkswagen, which admitted late last year to equipping 11 million vehicles worldwide with software to cheat emissions tests, has maintained that the deception was limited to a small group of people. The company has said top management was not aware of the cheating software, known as a defeat device.
But the New York civil complaint, drawing on internal Volkswagen documents, emails and witness statements, depicts a corporate culture that allowed a "willful and systematic scheme of cheating." The evidence paints the most detailed picture yet about how the deception unfolded and who was responsible.
The suit includes transcripts of emails between Volkswagen executives as they became aware in 2015 that California regulators would start looking more closely at their emissions tests. One executive who found themselves under scrutiny from lawmakers wrote to colleagues, "Come up with the story, please!"
The company has previously blamed the scandal on low-level technicians.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said during a press conference Tuesday, "The idea that this level of fraud could take place and involve so many people at such high levels of a major international corporation is appalling."
There is a "cunningly cynical fraud at the heart of this scandal," he said.
In New York alone, the scandal makes Volkswagen open to fines of more than $500 million.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey added, "This is an example of a company that not only engaged in deception and fraud on a brazen scale but covered up that deception."
The scandal "reflects a corporate culture that had no regard for the law, no respect for the American people and no regard for the environment or peoples' health," Healey said.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Three attorneys general investigating Volkswagen's emissions scandal say the plan to cheat pollution tests was an organized plot spanning more than a decade that implicates officials at the top of the company's corporate chain, the New York Times reports.
For the first time, lawsuits from New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts charge Volkswagen's chief executive, Matthias Muller, of being aware of decisions as far back as 2006 not to build Audi cars with equipment needed to meet U.S. air quality standards.
The Times' Jack Ewing and Hiroko Tabuchi report:
Volkswagen, which admitted late last year to equipping 11 million vehicles worldwide with software to cheat emissions tests, has maintained that the deception was limited to a small group of people. The company has said top management was not aware of the cheating software, known as a defeat device.
But the New York civil complaint, drawing on internal Volkswagen documents, emails and witness statements, depicts a corporate culture that allowed a "willful and systematic scheme of cheating." The evidence paints the most detailed picture yet about how the deception unfolded and who was responsible.
The suit includes transcripts of emails between Volkswagen executives as they became aware in 2015 that California regulators would start looking more closely at their emissions tests. One executive who found themselves under scrutiny from lawmakers wrote to colleagues, "Come up with the story, please!"
The company has previously blamed the scandal on low-level technicians.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said during a press conference Tuesday, "The idea that this level of fraud could take place and involve so many people at such high levels of a major international corporation is appalling."
There is a "cunningly cynical fraud at the heart of this scandal," he said.
In New York alone, the scandal makes Volkswagen open to fines of more than $500 million.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey added, "This is an example of a company that not only engaged in deception and fraud on a brazen scale but covered up that deception."
The scandal "reflects a corporate culture that had no regard for the law, no respect for the American people and no regard for the environment or peoples' health," Healey said.
Nadia Prupis
Nadia Prupis is a former Common Dreams staff writer. She wrote on media policy for Truthout.org and has been published in New America Media and AlterNet. She graduated from UC Santa Barbara with a BA in English in 2008.
Three attorneys general investigating Volkswagen's emissions scandal say the plan to cheat pollution tests was an organized plot spanning more than a decade that implicates officials at the top of the company's corporate chain, the New York Times reports.
For the first time, lawsuits from New York, Maryland, and Massachusetts charge Volkswagen's chief executive, Matthias Muller, of being aware of decisions as far back as 2006 not to build Audi cars with equipment needed to meet U.S. air quality standards.
The Times' Jack Ewing and Hiroko Tabuchi report:
Volkswagen, which admitted late last year to equipping 11 million vehicles worldwide with software to cheat emissions tests, has maintained that the deception was limited to a small group of people. The company has said top management was not aware of the cheating software, known as a defeat device.
But the New York civil complaint, drawing on internal Volkswagen documents, emails and witness statements, depicts a corporate culture that allowed a "willful and systematic scheme of cheating." The evidence paints the most detailed picture yet about how the deception unfolded and who was responsible.
The suit includes transcripts of emails between Volkswagen executives as they became aware in 2015 that California regulators would start looking more closely at their emissions tests. One executive who found themselves under scrutiny from lawmakers wrote to colleagues, "Come up with the story, please!"
The company has previously blamed the scandal on low-level technicians.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said during a press conference Tuesday, "The idea that this level of fraud could take place and involve so many people at such high levels of a major international corporation is appalling."
There is a "cunningly cynical fraud at the heart of this scandal," he said.
In New York alone, the scandal makes Volkswagen open to fines of more than $500 million.
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey added, "This is an example of a company that not only engaged in deception and fraud on a brazen scale but covered up that deception."
The scandal "reflects a corporate culture that had no regard for the law, no respect for the American people and no regard for the environment or peoples' health," Healey said.
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.