Compliance Monitor Chides VW Secretiveness in Diesel Scandal

The U.S.-appointed compliance official who is monitoring Volkswagen AG’s diesel cheating scandal says the carmaker continues to be reluctant to reveal information.

Larry Thompson is a former U.S. deputy attorney general who was assigned to track VW’s progress for at least three years as part of a $4.3 billion plea agreement in April 2017. In an interim report issued today, he takes exception to VW’s continued use of attorney-client privilege to withhold information about how the elaborate diesel cheating process evolved.

When Thompson was appointed, federal District Court Judge Sean Cox described the scandal as a “deliberate, massive fraud perpetrated by VW management” and urged the company to be rigorous in rooting out the origins of the scheme to evade pollution laws.

Since then Thompson has repeatedly criticized VW’s efforts to reform. In April he said VW had failed to hold upper-level managers accountable and was lagging making a “true cultural change” at the company. In June, he opined that VW must become more accepting of “new ideas and bad news.”

VW has adamantly denied any senior officials were involved in the scandal. But in May, a U.S. grand jury indicted Martin Winterkorn, VW’s CEO during the cheating, for conspiracy and wire fraud. A month later, German prosecutors arrested and have continued to hold Rupert Stadler, CEO of VW’s Audi unit, on suspicion of obstructing their investigation.