柴油门导致大众损失300亿欧元，但高管未受影响

尽管在9月下旬，以首席执行官赫伯特·迪耶斯和董事长潘师为首的大众高管团队因为四年前的柴油门排放欺诈事件遭到了刑事指控，并陷入了困境，但到9月25日，他们得到了大众强有力的监事委员会的力挺。

监事委员会在一则声明中指出，这两位高管“依然会留任”。这个决定在9月25日的特别会议上得到公司监事委员会的全票通过。

柴油门事件于2015年9月曝光，已经为大众带来了约300亿欧元的损失，其中包括德国政府总计23亿欧元的罚款。这并非是大众在德国第一次越过法律红线。奥迪的老板鲁伯特·斯塔德勒于2018年7月在公司被捕，原因在于慕尼黑当局在窃听其电话后担心他会篡改证据，并影响与排放争议有关的证人证词。

有关迪耶斯操控资本市场的指控并不是第一次。这位奥地利人最初在2016年6月就成为了这方面的嫌犯。确实，负责监督管理层的监事委员会在去年4月承认，不管怎么样，公司曾经围绕是否任命迪耶斯担任这一职务讨论过法律风险。

摩根大通的汽车分析师何塞·阿苏门迪认为，这位大众首席执行官的工作不会因此而受到影响，在这一重要职务上，他深受人们的爱戴。阿苏门迪说，资本经营者主要关注的是迪耶斯能否确保大众满足欧洲的2020年汽车排放目标，改善盈利能力，尤其是大众品牌的盈利能力，以及维持其在中国这一关键市场的主导地位。

阿苏门迪向《财富》杂志透露：“这些指控都已经存在多年。投资者的核心工作之一就是管理风险并进行观察，而迪耶斯被视为这一方面的佼佼者，也是极少数有能力管理像大众这样复杂集团的管理者之一。”

德国检方对大众高管有关市场操纵的犯罪调查进行了总结，提交了一份长达636页的指控，称大众高管在柴油门事件暴露前几周共谋蓄意隐瞒排放欺诈新闻。

除了迪耶斯之外，他们的指控对象还包括现任大众集团董事长潘师（丑闻爆发时曾经担任首席财务官）以及时任首席执行官文德恩。调查称他们三人至少在2015年7月底之前对排放欺诈完全知情，但没有一个人按法律要求向股东披露其财务风险。

这些指控还强调了集团企业治理存在的一些持续问题。就文德恩而言，当时这位蒙羞的资深首席执行官在数天后即将续约，但随后的丑闻让他丢掉了饭碗。不过，尽管政府当局在2017年3月首次突袭了大众总部，但斯塔德勒在两个月后依然拿下了奥迪首席执行官的新一届任期。

最高可获五年监禁

关于此案，州检察官搬来了超过满满22箱的文件和证据。至于是否受理这一案件，如今取决于大众总部沃尔夫斯堡附近的布伦瑞克地方法院。预计法院明年才能做出这个决定，而且裁决的时间会更长。

即便法院经过庭审后认定高管们为保护股价而欺骗股东，那么法官对这三名高管的判决也并没有定数，有可能是高额罚金，也有可能是高达五年的监禁。

即便是罚金和牢狱之灾，哪怕还是异常遥远的事情，也不大可能影响大众集团首席执行官对权力固若金汤的掌控。

杜伊斯堡-埃森大学汽车研究中心的创始人富迪兰德·杜登霍夫教授说：“迪耶斯对于争议并不回避。他现身电视脱口秀节目，尽管他的顾问可能会建议他不要这么做……不过他还是去了，这也显示了他的自信。”

没有确凿的证据

一位了解监事会想法的知情人士向《财富》杂志透露，在9月25日讨论这一事情的五位监事会成员对于指控证据无动于衷，特别是考虑到他们自己此前已经开展了这方面的调查。

知情人士说：“三年半以来，监事会委托的独立律师已经对证据进行了事无巨细的调查。就算半夜给律师打电话，他们都可以将这一事件娓娓道来。因此问题在于，检方如今是否突然得到了一些新的违法证据，还是说掌握了任何确凿的证据？”

鉴于这些指控并非是什么新罪名，摩根大通的阿苏门迪认为专业股东也不会因此而对公司施压。他们在购买股票时可能已经考虑了高管被捕的问题。

给予大众优先股“买入”评级的阿苏门迪说：“通过与他人交谈得知，这两位（迪耶斯和潘师）得到了投资界的全力支持。”

一位意想不到的人物向迪耶斯伸出了援手——特斯拉的首席执行官对其进行了声援。出于抱团取暖的目的，埃隆·马斯克在推文中写道：“在所有向电动进军的大型汽车生产商中，迪耶斯付出的更多。世界的利益应该放在第一位。不管怎么样，我力挺他。”（财富中文网）

译者：冯丰

审校：夏林

Volkswagen Group’s powerful supervisory board on September 25 threw its full support behind the embattled leadership team of Herbert Diess and Hans Dieter Pötsch, the company’s chief executive and chairman who were indicted earlier this week on criminal charges related to the four-year-old Dieselgate emissions-cheating scandal.

Both men, the supervisory board said in a statement, “are to remain in office. This was unanimously decided on September 25 by the company’s Supervisory Board in an extraordinary meeting.”

First brought to light in September 2015, Dieselgate has already cost the company roughly €30 billion euros, including a total of €2.3 billion in German fines. This is not the carmaker’s first brush with the law in Germany. Audi boss Rupert Stadler was arrested on the job in July 2018 after Munich authorities, who had tapped his phone, feared he was tampering with evidence and influencing witness testimony connected to the emissions controversy.

The allegations of manipulating capital markets levied at Diess are not new. The Austrian first became a suspect in June 2016. Indeed, the supervisory board tasked with management oversight acknowledged in April of last year that it had discussed the legal risks before moving ahead with his appointment anyway.

JP Morgan auto analyst Jose Asumendi believes the VW CEO will be able to continue on the job unimpeded. He’s well liked where it counts. Money managers, he said, are primarily focused on whether Diess can ensure the carmaker meets Europe’s 2020 fleet emission targets, improve profitability especially at the VW brand and maintain its dominance in the crucial Chinese market.

“These allegations have been known for three years,” Asumendi told Fortune. “One of the core jobs of an investor is to manage risk and take a view, and Diess is seen as being best in class, one of the very few people capable of managing a group as complex as Volkswagen.”

District prosecutors in Germany concluded their criminal investigation into market manipulation on Tuesday, delivering a 636-page indictment that claimed Volkswagen’s top executives had conspired with intent to withhold news of the emissions fraud in the weeks leading up to its uncovering.

Along with Diess, they also charged Pötsch, the current VW Group Chairman and the finance chief at the time the scandal broke, as well as the then-CEO, Martin Winterkorn. Together the three are alleged to have had full knowledge of the fraud by the end of July 2015 at the latest, and that none of the three chose to inform shareholders of the financial risks as required by law.

The charges highlight the continuing problems with the group’s corporate governance. In the case of Winterkorn, the disgraced veteran CEO was days away from a contract extension before the scandal cost him his job. Stadler secured himself another term as Audi CEO in May 2017, just two months after authorities first raided the company’s headquarters.

Up to five years behind bars

It is now up to a regional court in Brunswick, near VW’s headquarters of Wolfsburg, to determine whether to hear the case after attorneys for the state brought over 22 moving boxes full of documentation and evidence. A decision is not expected until next year and a ruling could take much longer.

Should they be tried and found guilty of deceiving shareholders to protect the stock price, a judge could sentence the trio to anything from a hefty fine to a prison term lasting up to five years.

Even the prospect of fines and jail, however remote, is unlikely to undermine the VWGroup CEO's rock-solid hold on power.

“Diess is not one to skirt controversy,” said Professsor Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, founder of the Center Automotive Research (CAR) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. “He appears in TV talk show against the likely recommendation of his advisors... But he does it anyway, and it demonstrates how self-assured he is.”

No smoking gun

A company source familiar with the supervisory board's thinking told Fortune the five ranking directors who discussed the matter on September 25 were unimpressed with the substance of the charges, particularly after having conducted an investigation of their own.

“Independent lawyers mandated by the board have been intensively sifting through evidence for three and a half years. You can call them up in the middle of the night and they can recite the issues at length, so the question is whether the prosecutor has now suddenly come across any new legally damning evidence, any smoking gun?” the person said.

Given that these allegations were previously known, JP Morgan’s Asumendi does not expect any pressure to come from professional shareholders either. They would have already taken the prospect of arrest into consideration before buying stock.

“Based on the conversations I have had, the two (Diess and Pötsch) enjoy the full backing of the investment community,” said Asumendi, who rates VW preferred shares a buy.

Diess also received support from an unusual corner yesterday when the CEO of Tesla sprang to his defense. “Herbert Diess is doing more than any big carmaker to go electric. The good of the world should come first,” tweeted Elon Musk in a demonstration of solidarity. “For what it’s worth, he has my support.”