Compliance Perspectives: Volkswagen's Transformation
Daily Compliance News: March 3, 2020, the Devil’s Advocate edition
Compliance into the Weeds-Episode 62, Sentencing of VW Employee Oliver Schmidt
Day 20: What Does Innovation in Compliance Look Like?
The regional court of Braunschweig, as competent court for the headquarters of Volkswagen AG ("VW"), rendered a decision that is a significant setback for climate litigation activists in Germany by fully dismissing a...more
The Tel Aviv District Court recently allowed a motion to certify a class action against the Volkswagen Group and its importer in Israel, Champion Motors Ltd. The class action focuses on the Dieselgate scandal, after an...more
Takeaways - Environmental groups have sued four large German companies, seeking to alter their products and activities to comply with climate goals far stricter than those set by German law. The cases derive in part...more
Last week, I posted the first installment of a two-part series on recent excessiveness decisions. In this second installment, I discuss two additional excessiveness decisions....more
Jobs report Friday again. Here’s what to look for in the numbers [and let’s temper those expectations, okay?]...more
Prorogate this, Boris. In an “unprecedented” ruling, the UK’s supreme court deemed the Prime Minister’s Brexit-driven suspension of Parliament “unlawful, void and of no effect” this morning and called on the body to reconvene...more
In January 2016, the United States sued Volkswagen for installing defective emission devices in certain model years 2009-2016 vehicles. As part of the settlement agreement, Volkswagen agreed to establish a $2.9 billion trust...more
In January 2019, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan returned an indictment against four executives from Audi, a Volkswagen subsidiary, for their participation and direction of Audi’s emissions-cheating...more
In order to comply with European antitrust rulings against it earlier this year, Google announced that for the first time it will begin charging telephone handset manufacturers to install Gmail, Google Maps, and other popular...more
China is answering the White House’s latest tariff announcement with another $60 billion in levies on US goods of its own....more
The recent Federal Constitutional Court decision severely limits legal privilege in German criminal investigations, but provides useful guidance to ensure privilege in limited circumstances. German government is called upon...more
While much has been made of U.S. EPA’s alleged scaling back of enforcement on various fronts and other policy changes, a wave of enforcement against mobile source engines appears ready to break on the heavy-duty diesel...more
Local governments and businesses considering investments in clean transportation projects may find funding opportunities resulting from partial settlements in the Volkswagen “clean diesel” emissions litigation. The U.S....more
A Volkswagen manager pleaded guilty to conspiracy and violating the Clean Air Act and could get seven years in prison. A Volkswagen engineer who agreed to testify against the Volkswagen manager was sentenced to three years in...more
The U.S. Department of Justice has asked the federal district court in the Volkswagen “clean diesel” emissions litigation to approve a long-awaited environmental mitigation trust agreement. The approval of the trust agreement...more
When Regulatory Failings Turn Criminal: Car Edition Redux - Why it matters: To paraphrase the famous quote from the film “All About Eve”: Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy car ride. In the first part of...more
One of three counts in Volkswagen’s recent $4.3 billion guilty-plea was for obstruction of justice arising from a litigation-hold botched by house counsel. As VW prepared to admit the defeat-device problems to US...more
The headlines generated by the Volkswagen emissions scandal continue to amaze the environmental community and the general public, both here and abroad. The events are shocking in part because they involve a household name in...more
Corporate misconduct occurs in a variety of forms. Starting with the basic truism – companies act through people, and when companies engage in misconduct it requires the coordination and collaboration of multiple actors. The...more
As is our annual tradition, this is the first in a series of posts that provide industry and legal outlooks for manufacturers as we head into 2017. I will start with corporate compliance and litigation. Matt will follow...more
The emissions cheating scandal that recently cost VW $4.3 billion and a mess of criminal indictments isn’t, it seems, confined to the Germans. We heard months ago about a similar probe into Mitsubishi, and yesterday we...more
The headline a few days ago was the arrest of VW exec Oliver Schmidt during an ill-advised trip to Miami last week. But the DOJ also indicted five other top executives over their role in VW’s emissions cheating scandal. No...more
Some early signs of the focus of SoftBank’s “hugely ambitious” $100 billion investment fund are beginning to emerge, and at first blush, it appears a majority of the cash will land in private and public markets rather than...more
That may well be the line most used by Volkswagen (VW) executives after the arrest of their fellow executive, Oliver Schmidt, this past week at the Miami airport. According to an article in the New York Times (NYT), entitled...more
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California held on January 4, 2017 that the federal securities laws apply to U.S. transactions in sponsored, but unlisted, American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) for a...more