The former CEO of German automotive titan Audi, Rupert Stadler, is set to stand trial in conjunction with the 'dieselgate' scandal, five years after parent company Volkswagen admitted responsibility for the event.
Stadler, 57, alongside former Porsche and Audi manager, Wolfgang Hatz and two Audi engineers are facing charges of "fraud, falsifying certifications and false advertising," according to the statement read at their initial hearing in Munich.
If found guilty, they will be the first executives involved in the scandal to have been convicted in Germany since it came into the public sphere back in September 2015, when VW admitted it has installed cheating software - devices designed to lie about the vehicle's emissions - in over 11 million diesel engines.
These devices made the cars appear to pollute less in lab tests than they did out on the road.
The charges levied against the defendants posit they intentionally mislead the public through fraudulent methods.
Media interest in the trial is expected to be very high, prompting court officials to relocate the hearings to a justice house in a secluded Munich suburb.
Owing to the social distancing measures in place due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, seating in the hearing room is to be limited, according to a court spokesperson.
Prior to his arrest in June 2018, Stadler has been CEO of Audi for 11 years, after having initially joined the company back in 1990. He has been in pretrial detention for the past four months due to court fears he would attempt to influence his witnesses.
Prosecutors say Stadler had been aware of the cheating devices placed inside the engines of VW cars since at least September 2015, but was negligent and allowed the corporation to continue selling the fraudulent vehicles.
His three fellow defendants stand accused of having developed and sold the engines fitted with manipulating software, which were installed in cars sold as early as 2009.
The charges levied against the four men cover a total of 434,420 Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche vehicles sold in the US and Europe.
Stadler has maintained his innocence since his arrest. Hatz, whose past roles include R&D at Porsche, also denies any wrongdoing.
The elaborate and complex trial is expected to run until at least December 2022. The indictment alone is more than 90 pages long and is expected to be read on Wednesday.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum of 10 years in prison.
Stadler is far from the only VW executive to face prison time for his involvement in the scandal.
A regional tribunal in Brunswick, near the group's Wolfsburg headquarters, found that Martin Winterkorn, former chief executive of the VW group, must stand trial for fraud and stock market manipulation.
The group's current CEO Herbert Diess and supervisory board chair Hans Dieter Poetsch had faced similar accusations of failing to inform shareholders in a timely manner of the pollution scam.
However, the charges were eventually dropped after VW agreed to a settlement in excess of €9 million.
Even five years after the scandal erupted, VW remains one of the largest automakers on the market, but they are currently bogged down by pricey legal costs.
The group has already paid out some €30 million in fines, legal costs and compensation to car owners, predominantly in the US.
Back in April, they settled Germany's biggest ever out-of-court settlement when they agreed to reimburse €750 million to 235,000 customers who were misled in the wake of the scandal.
The amounts to roughly between €1, 350 and €6,250 per car.
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