The fine was imposed due to “negligence [around the] delivery of calculation and control software” for the manipulated engines. The world’s second largest automotive supplier Continental announced on Thursday April 25 that it had agreed to pay a fine of 100 million euros to end proceedings against it in connection with the Volkswagen group’s rigged diesel engine scandal.
“Dieselgate” broke out in 2015 when Volkswagen admitted to having attempted to hide the real level of the most polluting emissions from 11 million of its diesel cars. Like the market leader, Bosch, Continental also quickly found itself in the sights of investigators for the equipment supplied to Volkswagen.
The lawsuits targeted its former transmission division called “Powertrain Drive”, which became Vitesco after its split from the group and then its listing on the stock market. Continental specifies that it has provisioned a large part of the amount of the fine and that it would now turn to Vitesco to recover the 100 million euros paid.
The case is closed for Continental, but proceedings are still underway against around forty people from the group, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from the Hanover public prosecutor’s office.
Former senior executives are being prosecuted for the offense of fraud and technicians for aiding and abetting fraud. In the sprawling affair that has shaken Germany’s auto sector and damaged the reputation of Europe’s largest economy as a whole, Volkswagen’s former CEO until 2015, Martin Winterkorn, will go on trial in September for his role in the scandal. The former CEO of the Audi subsidiary, Rupert Stadler, sentenced in June to twenty-one months in prison and a fine of 1.1 million euros, appealed this judgment.