Former Audi CEO Fined .2M, Gets Suspended Sentence For Dieselgate Role
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Former Audi CEO Fined $1.2M, Gets Suspended Sentence For Dieselgate Role

Former Audi CEO Fined .2M, Gets Suspended Sentence For Dieselgate Role

Last month, former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler admitted his involvement in the Dieselgate scandal to avoid a prison sentence. Today, a Munich court issued a verdict in the case, imposing a fine of over one million euros on Stadler and giving him a suspended sentence of one year and nine months.

When Stadler agreed to confess in May, he also agreed to pay a fine that Prosecutors had proposed to be as high as €2 million. However, the judge ruled that he would only have to pay €1.1 million ($1.2 million at the current exchange rate). Authorities arrested Stadler in 2018, and he has been on trial since 2020 for his role in the scandal that first came to light in September 2015.

In September 2015, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it had uncovered Volkswagen’s violation of the Clean Air Act. It was not until November 2016 that the agency implicated Audi. The German automaker used software to manipulate US emissions tests on its diesel vehicles.

Stadler is the first Volkswagen board member to be sentenced for his involvement in the scandal. However, other employees also received sentences this week. Former Audi executive Wolfgang Hatz and an engineer were also found guilty and given fines and suspended sentences. There are still ongoing cases against former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn and other former VW managers.

The scandal has also been costly for the automaker. Volkswagen Group has been fined billions of dollars in the US and other countries where it sold its non-compliant vehicles. Recently, South Korea fined Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and Volkswagen for conspiring to cheat the country’s emissions standards.

Audi is making efforts to put the scandal behind it by focusing on electric vehicles despite lagging behind the competition. VW Group CEO Oliver Blume stated last week that he intends to accelerate the development of electric vehicles for the Audi brand, which has been plagued by “severe software problems”. Next year, the company will launch the Q6 E-Tron on a new platform and release its final combustion-powered car in 2025.