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German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

politico.eu

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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#311

Post by NunoSempere »

teruakohatu wrote: post #137
Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #116

The headline says "execs" but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms. Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether.

It would be unlikely (not impossible) that board members would be briefed about ongoing criminal behaviour, and certainly not something so deep into operations as how the ECU is being programmed. Can a board member be reasonably responsible for the actions of tens of thousands of employees if they have not explicitly enabled or condoned criminal behaviour? The person that would benefit the most would be a senior exec…

> Can a board member be reasonably responsible for the actions of tens of thousands of employees if they have not explicitly enabled or condoned criminal behaviour?

Not sure what the answer is, but if the answer is yes, then that incentivizes them to build the oversight and reporting capabilities to be able to steer away from crime, and to hire noncriminal subordinates &c.

One way this could look in practice is board members having to post a large bond that gets taken away if the commpany is found to commit crimes during their tenure.

Anecdotically, the Real Madrid requires a large bond (57M) posted by the president. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/8076515.stm

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#313

Post by milesrout »

bhelkey wrote: post #146
Drunk_Engineer wrote: post #116

The headline says "execs" but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms. Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether.

The US indicted seven senior executives including Martin Winterkorn in 2017 [1]. None of these seven were extradited from Germany to the US to face trial. [1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-ceo-volkswage...

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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#314

Post by milesrout »

blippage wrote: post #292

Brit here. IANAL, but there is a legal principle of "vicarious liability". So if an employee does something bad, it's the employer that foots the bill. This is vicarious liability. It is actually a "good" thing as a legal principle because it's the the employer who has all the dough and is most able to compensate for a wrong. The downside to all this is that the bad actors get away with it. They have less skin in the…

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Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#315

Post by jxjnskkzxxhx »

blippage wrote: post #302
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If powerful people were afraid they would be a lot less unhinged.

As Bill Burr said, if we were to eat just one billionaire, then all the rest would tow the line.

Always struck me as a smart guy.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#316

Post by tanewishly »

fch42 wrote: post #196
keeganpoppen wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that wikipedia article is atrociously written holy cow. "pawn sacrifice"?!?

"Bauernopfer" (German for "pawn sacrifice") is a common term in German to mean "sacrificing someone insignificant to get the big guy out of trouble". So the English translation might be machine-done; in the original German, the word makes a lot of sense and carries a definite meaning.

Not a native speaker, but I've heard the term "sacrificial pawn" being used in such cases in movies and series.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#317

Post by triceratops »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #287
triceratops wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should at least be barred from being board members for a certain period of time.

Why, if they did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of anything illegal? It is extremely rare to see that kind of prosecution in western countries (US or EU).

Pour encourager les autres. If there's illegality going on at a company and the board doesn't know about it, future boards will make sure they are better informed.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#318

Post by sojournerc »

watwut wrote: post #300
bhelkey wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the VW scandal broke, the US indicted seven senior executives [1]. Germany did not cooperate. None of these seven were extradited to the US to stand trial. One more mid level engineer involved in the scandal made the mistake of taking a vacation to Florida. He was arrested in the airport awaiting his flight home to Germany [2]. He was sentenced to 84 months in prison but was let out after serving half of that se…

Germany does not extradite its nationals to the US at all. Not sure why would you expect this case to be so special that Germany would break its own laws.

You're stating this very confidently, but I don't think it's a blanket non-extradition policy. In the case of a potential death penalty, it's a clear no, but that's not the case here.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/10-201.9-Ge...

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#319

Post by triceratops »

Doxin wrote: post #290
s1artibartfast wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, if they did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of anything illegal? It is extremely rare to see that kind of prosecution in western countries (US or EU).

Because they should have known . They should have made it their business to know. Looking the other way on purpose should not be a valid legal defense.

> Looking the other way on purpose

Hell even if not on purpose. The point of a board is oversight. If management can commit illegal acts without the board's knowledge, the board has failed. Of course incompetence in a board role shouldn't lead to prison. But it should at least bar someone from future board jobs for a few years.

Re: German court sends VW execs to prison over Dieselgate scandal

#320

Post by seec »

benoau wrote: post #153
jxjnskkzxxhx wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually it happens only if you steal from investors. Stealing from consumers is fine.

We’re in the midst of watching Apple get away with criminal contempt for forcing consumers to be as ignorant as possible of their IAP fees - including forcing Patreon to exclusively use them while under court order to allow them to link to their own payments!

Contempt is like the default mode of operation of today's Apple.

Even if you like their stuff, find them useful and valuable, it's hard to abstract away the behavior. At some point it is bound to hurt you as well...

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