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VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

reuters.com

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Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#51

Post by B1FF_PSUVM »

aianus wrote: post #20
notyourday wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every single boss that the engineer had ( all the way to the CEO ) should be go to jail for that if that engineer went to jail.

Why? Is Pizza Hut's CEO criminally responsible if I run a red light to deliver a pizza because I'm afraid of being late? Edit: Please explain how the VW case is any different than my analogy

Actually, he should be. Unless he can show you had the training and the incentives to not do that, so it was entirely your fault.

If you're afraid with a reason, someone else did that to you.

(Those people have spreadsheets with everything weighed. Raise their costs, they'll cut out the psycho.)

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#52

Post by sqeaky »

btian wrote: post #45
sqeaky wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article flatly says that this person an executive and that several other executives were charged. This thread is fulling of people who didn't read a tiny well written article.

Oliver Schmidt is a low level manager in the Detroit office. Not what would come to people's mind when "executive" is mentioned. But I'm sure VW wants you to think their high level executives are being punished.

The article called him an executive, it might be wrong.

If the article is wrong then we should be talking about that (and the other executives that the article claims were charged) and not just presuming things.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#53

Post by canada_dry »

btian wrote: post #8

No. Nothing will happen to top executives. There's a lot of insight as to why from "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"

You must be mistaking them for US banking executives.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#55

Post by angersock »

Geekette wrote: post #16
angersock wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but the dude apparently cooperated with the investigators. Fuck the judicial system in the US.

Given the typical pattern of cooperation and plea deals, I assume his cooperation was in exchange for lesser charges and/or a relatively lenient sentence, i.e. it could have been much worse without.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's any better.

"I'll only break your hand instead of cutting it off" doesn't mean you're getting a good deal.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#56

Post by btian »

sqeaky wrote: post #52
btian wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oliver Schmidt is a low level manager in the Detroit office. Not what would come to people's mind when "executive" is mentioned. But I'm sure VW wants you to think their high level executives are being punished.

The article called him an executive, it might be wrong. If the article is wrong then we should be talking about that (and the other executives that the article claims were charged) and not just presuming things.

What is an "executive"?

If a sales executive considered executive?

If a person has 5 reports, is he/she an executive?

It's impossible to be wrong to call everyone working in a company "executive", and both VW and DOJ know this.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#57

Post by vmarsy »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #34
ballenf wrote: post #22

There's a flip side implication of this decision: it gives tremendous autonomy to engineers to stand up to management. It can empower legions of engineers to do the right thing when faced with pressure to do wrong. Maybe I'm trying too hard to find a silver lining. I'm angered at the hypocrisy of the management getting to sleep in their own beds for the next 40 months and their kids having no indication of their pare…

Not a chance unless clear whistleblower laws emerge providing strong incentives coupled with extreme protections

There is already such incentives for companies defrauding the government [1] :

"Qui tam" where the whistleblower can receive "between 15% and 25% of any award or settlement amount" on cases like this seems to be a pretty huge incentive.

Look at the "Example" section in [1]:

      - 2009 :  
    [...] was awarded $51.5 million for his role as a whistleblower 
    102 million that was distributed between the six whistleblowers 
    [...] whistleblower was awarded 18% of the $253 million civil settlement
      - 2012 : 
    was entitled to $3.6 million of the settlement
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui_tam#United_States

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#58

Post by ballenf »

sqeaky wrote: post #37
ballenf wrote: post #22

There's a flip side implication of this decision: it gives tremendous autonomy to engineers to stand up to management. It can empower legions of engineers to do the right thing when faced with pressure to do wrong. Maybe I'm trying too hard to find a silver lining. I'm angered at the hypocrisy of the management getting to sleep in their own beds for the next 40 months and their kids having no indication of their pare…

Read the article. This guy was an executive and 7 or 8 other executive were charged as well. He happened to be the executive in charge of engineering. He also plead guilty.

I thought I had read it closely, but did miss the detail regarding his executive status. The implication remains, however, that higher executives were the source of the pressure to defraud. Maybe it was his idea and maybe they did get the "right" person.

Pleading guilty, however, is as much a sign of pragmatic intelligence as actual guilt, especially when dealing with federal law enforcement in the US.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#59

Post by lacksconfidence »

sqeaky wrote: post #37
ballenf wrote: post #22

There's a flip side implication of this decision: it gives tremendous autonomy to engineers to stand up to management. It can empower legions of engineers to do the right thing when faced with pressure to do wrong. Maybe I'm trying too hard to find a silver lining. I'm angered at the hypocrisy of the management getting to sleep in their own beds for the next 40 months and their kids having no indication of their pare…

Read the article. This guy was an executive and 7 or 8 other executive were charged as well. He happened to be the executive in charge of engineering. He also plead guilty.

Indeed calling him an engineer, while technically true, suggests something different than what happened. He is an executive, not a line engineer.

Re: VW engineering executive sentenced to 40-month prison term in diesel case

#60

Post by true_religion »

ruleabidinguser wrote: post #7

The worker goes to jail? What about the exec

This worker is the executive. He was in charge of the entire development of the project, and was a key decision maker in the later coverups.

They're calling him an engineer out of respect for his professional qualifications as such things are immensely important in Germany. Because he was an engineer, he has a duty to not act unethically within his professional capacity, and is shamed more than a mere MBA-style executive would be.

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