VW Manager in Germany Is Said to Have Pushed for Removing Evidence
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Version 0 of 1. FRANKFURT — German prosecutors said Thursday that they were investigating whether a Volkswagen manager encouraged employees to destroy or remove documents last year, shortly before the Environmental Protection Agency publicly accused the carmaker of illegally manipulating emissions tests in the United States. Volkswagen employees have told investigators that a person in a supervisory position sent clear signals in August 2015 that they should remove evidence. While the person wasn’t explicit, “everyone understood,” said Klaus Ziehe, a spokesman for the state’s attorney in Braunschweig, Germany The investigation, previously reported by several German news organizations, could raise the stakes for Volkswagen, which is already under intense scrutiny by authorities in the United States, Germany and other countries. The E.P.A. formally accused Volkswagen of clean air violations on Sept. 18, 2015. The company has maintained in court documents that top executives of the company did not grasp the gravity of the accusations until shortly before the E.P.A. announcement. If a VW manager was signaling employees to remove documents in August, it suggests that at least some people in supervisory positions were aware of the possible grave repercussions. Mr. Ziehe said that employees transferred some electronic documents to thumb drives, which have been recovered, and that prosecutors do not believe that much, if any, information was lost. Prosecutors did not disclose the name of the German suspect or his job description, in line with German privacy laws. A person close to the carmaker, who declined to be named because of the continuing investigation, said the suspect was a member of Volkswagen’s legal staff and has been suspended from his job. It is not the first time Volkswagen has faced accusations that employees tried to impede investigations into widespread cheating on diesel emissions tests. In March, a former Volkswagen employee filed a whistle-blower lawsuit in Michigan, asserting that co-workers illegally deleted electronic data shortly after the United States government accused the carmaker of cheating on emissions tests. The former employee, Daniel Donovan, says he was fired from his job as an information manager at a Volkswagen facility in Auburn Hills, Mich., because his superiors believed that he was about to report the company to the authorities for obstruction of justice. Mr. Ziehe said he did not know whether there was any connection between the Braunschweig investigation, which focuses on a Volkswagen employee based in Germany, and the alleged destruction of data in the United States reported by Mr. Donovan. Prosecutors have said they have identified 17 suspects in a wider investigation into who was responsible for installing software in 11 million diesel vehicles that was designed to mislead regulators about the cars’ emissions of poisonous nitrogen oxide. The prosecutors in Braunschweig, a city near Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, have not filed formal charges against any of the suspects. Mr. Ziehe said it would most likely be several more months before prosecutors determined if they had enough evidence to make arrests. The investigation of the VW manager was earlier reported by the German broadcasters NDR and WDR and the Süddeutsche Zeitung in Munich, who worked together on the story. |