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No. Nothing will happen to top executives. There's a lot of insight as to why from "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executi
by btian 9y ago
No. Nothing will happen to top executives.
There's a lot of insight as to why from "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"
- djrogers 9y agoYour cynicism apparently outweighs your reading skills: Quoting directly FTA: "U.S. prosecutors have charged eight current and former Volkswagen executives in connection with the diesel emissions cheating probe. Liang is one of the lowest-ranking executives charged so far. Another VW executive, Oliver Schmidt, has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in Detroit on Dec. 6. Under a plea agreement, Schmidt could face up to seven years in prison and a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000 after admitting to conspiring to mislead U.S regulators and violating clean air laws."
- sqeaky 9y agoThe article flatly says that this person an executive and that several other executives were charged. This thread is fulling of people who didn't read a tiny well written article.
- btian 9y agoOliver Schmidt is a low level manager in the Detroit office. Not what would come to people's mind when "executive" is mentioned. But I'm sure VW wants you to think their high level executives are being punished.
- sqeaky 9y agoThe article called him an executive, it might be wrong. If the article is wrong then we should be talking about that (and the other executives that the article claims were charged) and not just presuming things.
- btian 9y agoWhat is an "executive"? If a sales executive considered executive? If a person has 5 reports, is he/she an executive? It's impossible to be wrong to call everyone working in a company "executive", and both VW and DOJ know this.
- alxmdev 9y agoI wouldn't say it's a well written article, it's confusing and ambiguous regarding the sentenced individual's role and position in the company. That makes all the difference between this being a slap on the wrist or a more meaningful reprimand.
- sqeaky 9y agoIt states that several other executives were charged. Even if this one person isn't an executive that one sentence makes it clear it this is more than a slap on the wrists for volkswagon. I suppose it might not well written, but it certainly is concise. This took me about 90 seconds to read in full. That is entirely reasonable to read before posting.
- btian 9y agoUpdating to say "top executives". They have no trouble charging engineers and low level managers, but then it stops. It's not my cynicism because it happened so many times. DOJ has no trouble charging a Goldman Sachs trader, but will never charge C-suite executives. Read the book.
- canada_dry 9y agoYou must be mistaking them for US banking executives.
- btian 9y agoDOJ used the same procedure. Investigations were carried out by Jones Day (VW's law firm), paid by VW. Don't be surprised when you get the same results.
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15101170 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15101170 and marked it off-topic.