The Munich Regional Court has sentenced former Audi CEO Rupert Stadler to a suspended prison sentence of one year and nine months. The chamber found him guilty of fraud on Tuesday.
The two co-accused – the former head of engine development and later Porsche board member Wolfgang Hatz and the engineer P. – received suspended sentences for fraud.
These are the first criminal judgments in Germany in the diesel scandal uncovered in 2015, which shook the entire industry and caused billions in damage. Hatz and the engineer P. had confessed to having taken care of the manipulation of diesel engines. In doing so, they complied with emission values on the test stand, but throttled the emission control on the road. Stadler has confessed to stopping the sale of manipulated cars too late.
The suspended sentences are linked to the payment of high fines. The public prosecutor had already approved the suspended sentences for Stadler and P. as part of an agreement in the process, but in the case of Hatz demanded a prison sentence without probation. The judgments are not yet final.
