Rupert Stadler (60), former CEO of auto giant Audi pleaded guilty at the “dieselgate” fraud trial in Germany on Tuesday. This made him the highest-ranking former executive to confess in emissions cheating scandal that rocked the car industry.
At a district court in Munich, he admitted that he allowed the vehicles which were equipped with manipulating software to remain on sale even after learning about the scam. Stadler’s confession has come as part of a plea deal that will allow him to avoid jail time. He is on trial since 2020.
German car giant Volkswagen — whose subsidiaries include Porsche, Audi, Skoda and Seat — plunged into crisis after admitting in September 2015 that it had installed software to rig emission levels in 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.
Use of the so-called defeat devices meant that the vehicles caused less pollution in lab tests than on the road.
“In the course of addressing the diesel issue” after the revelations became public, Stadler “neglected” to inform business partners that cars with so-called defeat devices were still going on the market, his lawyer Ulrike Thole-Groll told the court in a statement.
She said that in doing so, her client (Stadler), was “accepting that vehicles equipped with the illegal software would go on sale”.
Asked by the judge whether the statement was correct, Stadler replied: “Yes.”
Until now, Stadler had denied any wrongdoing.
But his defence team announced earlier this month that he had accepted a plea deal that included a confession in exchange for a suspended sentence of up to two years.
Stalder has also agreed to make a payment of 1.1 million euros ($1.2 million). A verdict in this matter is expected to come in June.
Volkswagen, the parent company of Audi, has always said that the ‘dieselgate’ was something done by a handful of lower-level employees and that they were acting without the knowledge of their superiors.
Stadler himself was not accused of instigating the trickery.
However, prosecutors in Germany say that Stadler knew about the scam by end of September 2015 “at the latest” and he still allowed sale of thousands of more vehicles until early 2018.
Now that Stadler has admitted that he failed to intervene, he faces a conviction for fraud by negligence. His lawyer said that he “regretted” that he was not able to “resolve the crisis”.
Stadler had been Audi’s chief executive for 11 years when he was arrested in 2018. He was also a member of the management board at Volkswagen group.
(With inputs from agencies)
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