In the test case against the VW umbrella company Porsche SE (PSE), the former CEO Wendelin Wiedeking and the then CFO Holger Härter denied any knowledge of exhaust gas manipulation at Volkswagen.
The two former managers said on Wednesday before the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court that this had never been an issue on the supervisory board of Europe's largest car manufacturer. The legal dispute concerns claims for damages by PSE shareholders. They accuse the major shareholder of Volkswagen of having informed too late about the emissions scandal.
Wiedeking said: "I had no idea that Volkswagen would not have been able to develop a diesel engine that also met the strict US environmental regulations." He was even more unaware that illegal defeat devices had apparently been used in the company. He only found out about the events from the press in 2015, said the 70-year-old, who was also the head of carmaker Porsche. He was a member of the VW supervisory board from 2006 to 2009.
Was the publication obligation violated?
"I'm not a friend of the diesel engine," Wiedeking continued. The CFO at the time, Holger Härter, also a former member of the Volkswagen Supervisory Board, said that the diesel engine was never an issue when the sports car manufacturer planned to take over Wolfsburg. At the request of VW patriarch Ferdinand Piëch, Porsche once included a diesel model of the Cayenne in its range. In retrospect, Härter complained about the lack of transparency in VW's accounting system. This gradually got better. The 66-year-old Härter and Wiedeking left the group in 2009.
The witness hearing of the two ex-board members was intended to clarify whether a decision by Volkswagen in June 2008, alleged by a shareholder, to sell vehicles with an EA 189 engine equipped with an illegal defeat device, represented insider information for the holding company - and whether it was therefore possibly against a disclosure requirement has been breached.
The plaintiffs emphasize that - in ignorance of the diesel fraud - they paid too much money for their PSE shares years ago. Her reasoning: If VW and then the holding company had informed the markets about the scandal earlier, it would have depressed the share price earlier and they would have had to pay less for their shares. The PSE considers the complaints to be "obviously unfounded". One is a holding company and not a car manufacturer. For this reason, they were not involved in the development, manufacture or sale of diesel engines that had become conspicuous.
The Higher Regional Court declared a British fund to be a model plaintiff, asserting a claim of 5.7 million euros. The trial is scheduled to continue on March 29, 2023 with an announcement date.
