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?
Former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn is facing aggravated fraud charges from German prosecutors for his leadership of the automaker “when it deceived regulators about its vehicles’ diesel exhaust levels.” The criminal...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
We all know the saying – A fish rots from the head. Sometimes a clear and simple statement says it all. The Volkswagen diesel emissions cheating scandal is yet another example of C-Suite, even CEO, misconduct....more
The DOJ has charged former VW chief exec Martin Winterkorn (and 5 others) with conspiring to defraud the US government in Volkswagen’s “yearslong effort to rig its diesel vehicles to feign compliance with federal emissions...more
The notoriously close-to-the-vest Amazon revealed for the first time yesterday in a letter to shareholders that its popular Prime program boasts more than 100 million paid members globally....more
ECB Chief Mario Draghi’s having none of the US Treasury Secretary’s recent weak-dollar talk, accusing the US official, in not so many words, of “violating agreements among nations against starting currency wars”....more
The latest on the potential Disney move for “significant parts of 21st Century Fox,” which is nearing completion and could see Murdoch scion leaving his father and brother in order to work for Big Mouse....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
We are fascinated by corporate scandals. Since the 1980s, the US public has enjoyed unraveling corporate scandals, and vilifying corporate leaders caught in the web of deceit and misconduct. I am sure there are historical...more
Hoping to reverse recent years of struggles, J. Crew is bidding farewell to CEO Mickey Drexler (though he’ll stay on as chairman) in favor of West Elm’s James Brett....more
The struggle to attract and retain businesses and the jobs they provide has increasingly led to states and cities squaring off against others, with competing tax incentive packages the very real currency of the battle....more
Ex-VW-Chairman Ferdinand Piech has thrown a wrench in the automaker’s official narrative of the emissions cheating scandal by suggesting, in sworn testimony, that the company knew of the cheating months before it was...more
The CFPB has ordered UniRush (purveyor of the RushCard prepaid debit card) and its payment processor, MasterCard, to fork over $13 million in fines after a breakdown last year that blocked thousands of customers from...more
When unraveling a major corporate scandal, especially multi-year schemes involving senior executives, the blame game or lessons learned approach can easily turn into a fruitless exercise. The VA and Takata scandals are...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
By volume, December wasn’t an incredible month for US jobs. But the report did help cap a year that saw average hourly earnings rise 2.9%—the best since 2009 and a “turning point for the overall economy,” according to one...more
Last week, the Justice Department reported a guilty plea in the VW emissions scandal prosecution. By this one announcement, DOJ signaled that it is planning to build a bigger case against VW. Ironically, the Justice...more
Compliance professionals are familiar with the phrase “tone at the top,” but what exactly does it mean? Unlike other compliance program components, it cannot be easily formalized and implemented in a policy or procedure....more