This Wednesday, Matthias Müller, the second former VW CEO after Herbert Diess, will speak in court about the diesel affair. It is the lawsuit before the Braunschweig Higher Regional Court that investors brought after they suffered billions in price losses because VW shares plummeted after the scandal was exposed in 2015. Volkswagen investors felt they were informed too late.
Müller’s message to the court is, in short: He knew nothing. “The whole topic was foreign to me,” said the 70-year-old, who was invited as a witness. Terms like defeat device – the VW internal name for the facility that switched off emissions control – was not known to him before the allegations became known. He always firmly assumed that everything would happen within the framework of the legal requirements. Looking back to 2007, when he joined VW as head of product management, Müller said that this role gave you more of a bird’s eye view. “I don’t think I went into the depths of the aggregates.” He was not concerned with details.
Winterkorn seemed “like a heap of misery.”
Müller defended his predecessor Martin Winterkorn in his statement. In those days when it emerged that VW had been manipulating emissions levels for years, he was “completely irritated” and demanded a quick reaction.
The matter got rolling on September 18, 2015 through a communication from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She provided information about manipulation of emissions tests on VW diesel cars in the USA. Müller, who was Porsche boss at the time, only said he was really confronted with the issue afterwards. Müller now said in court that he unexpectedly became Winterkorn’s successor as CEO and that he never doubted that the company adhered to legal requirements.
At the group board meeting on September 22nd, there was, in Müller’s words, “great consternation.” The following day, Winterkorn took on “political responsibility” with his resignation, said Müller. In a one-on-one conversation that day, he seemed like “a heap of misery.” Winterkorn simply could not imagine that something like this would happen in this company. “If he had known about it earlier, he would have done something about it sooner,” said Müller.
The process has been going on for several years. The court is currently examining more than 80 witnesses. After former CEO Herbert Diess and Matthias Müller, Winterkorn will be on the witness list from next week.