> The court sentenced two of the former executives to prison for several years...
Anyone here know German? I couldn't find a good translation for the number "several."
German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#172And one engineer went on vacation to America. Congratulations, you‘ve won seven years in a foreign prison! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Schmidt_(engineer)
It's the other way around, he was US-based and went for a vacation to Germany.
Do you have a source for this?
CNN reports that he was on vacation to Florida and was arrested in the airport awaiting a flight home to Germany [1].
[1] https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/17/news/companies/volkswagen-e...
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
When it comes to criminal offences, they are pretty much within the law, well except they can afford better lawyers so usually get away with minimum legally possible punishment. Companies and the concept of limited liability exists to make innovation possible. No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. And, because majority of money businessmen make is the…
> No one will start a startup knowing they will have their house confiscated and go to prison if it fails. What does that have to do with anything? We're not discussing a case of VW making bad business decisions and losing money. If you start a company and break the law and harm people, you should have your house confiscated and/or go to prison. If you can't take this responsibility, just don't start the startup, tha…
Yes that was a bad example. The "limited liability" concept applies to financial losses, not crimes.
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#174And one engineer went on vacation to America. Congratulations, you‘ve won seven years in a foreign prison! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Schmidt_(engineer)
that wikipedia article is atrociously written holy cow. "pawn sacrifice"?!?
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#175The OP does not mention the name of one VW exec (Oliver Schmidt, the head of VW's environmental and engineering office in Michigan, a German citizen) convicted in US Federal Court in 2017 for his part in the scandal. He was released after serving about 3.5 years in prison. A second exec sentenced in the US (also in 2017) was James Liang, also a German citizen, who prosecutors say "was a pivotal figure in designing th…
Deutsche Welle has a bit more detail and also discusses the CEO: https://www.dw.com/en/4-ex-vw-managers-guilty-of-fraud-over-... Apparently he has some health issues which caused the case against him to be suspended. That might resume later but unclear right now. He's 78 at this point.
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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#176Good for Germany, but it is all too rare to see bad corporate behaviour punished like this. Steal £10k from a company, and you will probably go to prison for a long time. Start a company and steal billions from your customers and/or the tax payer, and you will probably get away with it. I believe Iceland was the only country to jail bankers after the 2008 banking disaster. We are still waiting for the British governm…
SBF is in prison, so it happens sometimes.
With the political tensions in the US (I'm not trying to fan any flames - wait to read the full thing), I think that SBF made the mistake to 'bet on both teams - with a smile', and he is punished because teamA that eventually won punished him for funding teamB as well. So a friend of our enemy is our enemy (!?). Also, he may have been seen as a 'traitor' by both teams. I know about the case what I've read in some news sites and Coffeezilla/Voidzilla, and it seems like the guy should be behind bars. And with that said, I rarely celebrate when someone loses their freedom. I mostly feel sorry for them and their life's choices (and the fact that with being in prison he made his own life hell, and put in some very difficult position everyone near/around him).
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Consumers still have to breathe though. I'd be totally fine if diesel engines were completely phased out. In the US we somehow can't even get rid of those idiots that retune their engines for "rolling coal".
You can’t wage modern war without diesel engines, those trucks won’t drive themselves close to the front-lines (and, no, electric-powered trucks in times of war are a terrible idea, and the ones powered by gasoline are a lot less efficient and don’t provide the same torque numbers).
Why would electric trucks be a terrible idea in war time?
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#178The head of Diesel engine development and the head of powertrain electronics are going to jail. Two CEOs and the chairman got off.
Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal
#179> The court sentenced two of the former executives to prison for several years... Anyone here know German? I couldn't find a good translation for the number "several."
(I assume you ask about the exact numbers, not how to translate it?)
The actual prison sentences are 4.5 years for the former head of diesel engine development, 2 years 7 months for the former head of engine electronics.
Two more got sentenced on probation, a former (guessing at the translation here) Chief R&D Officer for 1 year 3 months, a (unspecified in the source I'm reading) department head 1 year 10 months.
Apparently 31 more people are targeted by further cases. (+ Winterkorn, but I wouldn't be surprised if he never makes it to trial given it's been aborted twice already due to health issues)