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From the article: > Mr. Schmidt did not identify any Volkswagen superiors who might have pressured him to lie to regulators. I think the point here is refusal
by vesinisa 9y ago
From the article:
> Mr. Schmidt did not identify any Volkswagen superiors who might have pressured him to lie to regulators.
I think the point here is refusal to co-operate with prosecutors. They wanted to know who at Volkswagen told him to lie, and they would have been happy to let him off the hook if he co-operated. He refused, essentially continuing to demonstrate his loyalty to VW and thus perpetuating his complicity in the criminal justice process of the very crime he was now convicted of. He failed to demonstrative effective repentance, and now must serve as warning example to other white collar criminals.
- tempestn 9y agoAgreed that it makes sense for that to factor into the punishment.
- rsp1984 9y agoWhich makes it likely that there is some kind of deal in the background between Schmidt and VW. After all his inside knowledge of the subject matter would be a very powerful weapon for the prosecutors and very dangerous for VW.
- matt4077 9y agoThat's incredibly dangerous for all involved. First, it's piling another crime onto all the other crimes. Second, any such agreement, by nature of being illegal, would be unenforceable. Even if he has already collected on it, the company would be required to demand the money back if the deal is ever discovered. Yet if he had somehow managed to hide the money out of the company's reach, he would have been in a position to renege on the deal. TL/DR: don't make illegal deals with criminals who are smart enough to understand the prisoners' dilemma.
- m_mueller 9y agoThen why would he travel to the US?
- madaxe_again 9y agoExcept, he may have a trump card significant enough that the mutual knives to throats will ensure his reward upon his inevitable early release. Enforcement doesn’t require legal means - it’s called blackmail.
- moduspol 9y agoWell the buck stops somewhere, right? Unless the CEO personally ordered it (which seems unlikely), someone somewhere below the CEO ordered this. You will eventually find someone down the chain who cannot identify a superior that pressured them to do it. That in no way implies he's covering for superiors out of loyalty to VW.
- vesinisa 9y agoLiterally right above the paragraph I quoted says Schmidt sought lenience on the grounds that he was ordered to lie to the regulators by his supervisors and a company lawyer. Looks like in his own mind his only crime was being loyal to a corrupt foreman. Classically German.
- moduspol 9y ago> In a letter to the judge before the sentencing, Mr. Schmidt said his loyalty to Volkswagen had led him to be “misused by my own company.” He cited a meeting in 2015 with a senior official at the California Air Resources Board at which he concealed the existence of software that allowed Volkswagen to cheat on emission tests. > “A script, or talking points, I was directed to follow for that meeting was approved by management level supervisors at VW, including a high-ranking in-house lawyer, ” he said in the letter. “Regrettably, I agreed to follow it.” None of that implies he was ordered to lie to regulators. It says he concealed software and followed a script, not that the people who wrote or approved the script knew he would be lying to regulators by following that script, or that he was concealing software.