Former VW Chairman Piech Won’t Testify about Diesel Scandal

Ferdinand Piech—who resigned as chairman of Volkswagen AG in 2015 over the company’s diesel emission cheating scandal—has refused to testify on the matter to a German parliamentary committee.

Piech’s attorney say the former executive has no intention of commenting publicly on testimony he gave last April to Jones Day, the U.S. law firm hired by VW to probe the scandal, and to prosecutors in Brunswick, Germany, in December.

A report last week by Germany’s Bild am Sonntag said Piech told VW’s supervisory board about the cheating in March 2015. That was six months before U.S. regulators revealed the scandal.

An unnamed source tells Reuters that Piech also raised the emissions issue with then-CEO Martin Winterkorn in March 2015 and was assured the problem was being resolved by a recall. The source adds that Piech described the conversation to Jones Day in April.

Last week VW, whose board has denied prior knowledge of the scandal, threatened to take legal action against Piech for suggesting otherwise. The government panel that has requested Piech’s testimony was set up last spring to determine whether government officials and regulators either participated in the emission cheating or covered it up.