The hope of the “dieselgate” criminal settlement being decided before the end of Barack Obama’s administration is possibly wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
Instead, the fate of the VW management board may well be left in the hands of Donald Trump’s administration, which is an unknown territory.
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German newspaper BILD reported that VW will have to fear the worse, as insinuated by their headline “VW now in the Trump Trap”.<\/p>\n
In the U.S. Department of Justice report, it detailed that the criminal charges against the German manufacturer won\u2019t be coming to a close before the end of Obama\u2019s presidency. The report also suggested a horror scenario; that Trump, his team, and future Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, won\u2019t be any closer to making a settlement deal.<\/p>\n
On top, this could in fact broaden the criminal investigations…<\/p>\n
The VW Group fears that they\u2019ll be exposed to the \u201ccapriciousness of an unpredictable government\u201d, and their fears could be well-founded, as his future administration is already proving to be quite unpredictable, with some of his proposals including to \u2018undo\u2019 the progress that Obama has made in regards to climate change.<\/p>\n
The criminal probe started in September this year when a former VW engineer, James Robert Liang, pleaded guilty to colluding to defraud regulators and vehicle owners. From then on, the Department of Justice seems to have built a broader criminal case to include VW\u2019s top management board.<\/p>\n
Mr Liang\u2019s deceit reportedly accelerated the development of the so-called \u201cdefeat device\u201d. He also reportedly covered up the emissions testing as well as lying to regulators when there were discrepancies in the emissions results.<\/p>\n
Federal prosecutors and VW lawyers have had several preliminary discussions in an attempt to reach a settlement before the end of the year. However, it doesn\u2019t seem possible. The German manufacturer is expected to face a large fine if the \u00a311.6 billion civil settlement is anything to go by.<\/p>\n
To speed things up, U.S. investigators have reached out to VW employees to come to the U.S. so they can get further information in light of the scandal. Even if U.S. regulators were to charge individuals from VW\u2019s executive board, they will probably not face extradition as the German constitution usually prohibits extradition outside of the EU.<\/p>\n
The criminal investigation comes at a time where the government are trying to clamp down on white-collar crimes and holding individuals accountable for their actions. Prosecuting Mr Liang for his reported deceitful actions has arguably got the ball rolling for making higher executives accountable too. Unless Trump\u2019s office diverts away from this priority, I\u2019m sure that we won\u2019t see the last of these criminal prosecutions…<\/p>\n