this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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I long for the day that ANYTHING close to this happens in the USA
I guess you've good news, then.
To salvage the argument, it's quite possible this would have been different if they were from GM rather than VW.
It most likely would‘ve. Just look how quickly US courts started to turn Monsanto into shreds the very second Bayer bought it. They‘re after that so called stupid German money. Wouldn‘t work if it was American money.
I am surprised VW clowns got the prison tbh but i am sure there is a reason why it actually happened here.
System fucked up lol
I dunno, VW is about as American as GM.
Yeah, unless they are Chief Engineers, these two are just people who got caught in the churn.
Wake me up when the President of US Operations gets sentenced to prison. Hell, I'll even be okay with club Fed.
They are like the one guy who went to jail for the 08 financial crisis
Not CEOs
Neither were the people in Germany.
The (now ex-) CEO of VW, Winterkorn, is a fugitive from justice in US -- the reason he isn't in prison in the US is because he's hiding in Germany, and Germany doesn't extradite its nationals. IIRC from memory back during the incident, he's facing a total of over two hundred years in potential sentence from the charges, though some of that would probably run in parallel, were he convicted, and I assume that in practice, there'd be some sort of plea deal.
EDIT: Maybe it was over one hundred, not two hundred. I distinctly remember trying to figure out whether the sentences could run in parallel when reading an article about it at the time. In practice, he'd probably plea bargain it down, but there also is no parole for federal sentences in the US, so he wouldn't be getting out early, either.
EDIT2: Also, because he's a fugitive and it's a federal crime:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3290
So I expect that he's probably going to stay in Germany for the rest of his life, unless he can find some other location that wouldn't extradite him (Russia?)
According to Wikipedia, he should have a criminal trial in Germany starting this year, so it's possible he will still get sentenced there as well.
Saudi Arabia might take him. Hell, they put up Idi Amin for the remainder of his syphilis-scarred life.
This is the most unbelievable part: a us court held management responsible for criminal behavior? Did that not pay their fines? Did no one have a spare jet to offer?
When you don’t read the article ^
While I see your point, it’s important to note that the people jailed in the US were called “engineers”, not “executives”.
You can be both. Schmidt was general manager of VW's U.S. Environment and Engineering Office.
As much as I like to see consequences, I would rather have just seen a very large fine put toward environmental purposes than prison time. Save prison for people who pose a direct danger to the public.
I would agree, but with one significant condition:
the fine would have to be large enough to be an effective punishment, and serve as a deterrent. A company as valuable as VW would have to pay an enormous fine.
For funsies the justice department fined Meta fifty million dollars. Meta made that back by the time your eyes got to the end of this sentence.
But their scam did pose a direct health danger to society. If there are never consequences for executives, they won't care if the company loses some money (or go bankrupt), they land another job elsewhere and live on.
"hear hear!"
Would VW have many overseas “executives”?
I don’t know if they’d have many, but I’d expect them to have at least a few. North America is a major market.
Their subsidiary companies do, but VW is a German company, the “executives” are ALL gonna be there dude… and those US execs would be doing what THEIR oversea “executives” want them to, so there’s still people above those who may be overseas. So calling them “executives” would be wrong since there is people above them still.
The point is, your “note” doesn’t matter mate.
Even if it's not VW executives it would be nice to see any executives actually face jail here in the US.
Every multinational corp has execs for each region.
President and VP of insert region operation is a common title given to EXECS of foreign corps.
Yes, what do you think subsidiary means…?
These engineers clearly held executive roles, they just weren’t with the Volkswagen (germany) so they would have had to clarify their subsidiary. For journalism this was the correct wording. If they wanted to call them execs, it would have had to go into detail about Volkswagen (Us particular division and reasons)
If you’re talking about Fritolays, you don’t just go and say execs when talking about “lays” or “Doritos” subsidiaries, you would use “engineers” or whatever other work they held to simplify it.
It’s an unnecessary distinction for non mutually exclusive exclusive terms, to use “executives” would lead to more confusion and that would be shit journalism….
It’s an article about the German Volkswagen, why are you assuming it’s about the multinational subsidiary? You can be an engineer for Volkswagen, and their subsidiary, but that requires explaining if you want to call them that. Which is totally unnecessary since the article wasn’t about them.
Oh. You’re only counting GERMAN execs as executives. Okay.
Yes… the article is about the German company dude….. not the “Volkswagen group” and not “Volkswagen international” or whatever includes their multinational groups. To assume otherwise is just weird, they never mentioned anything but their German company.
Terms aren’t mutually exclusive… you don’t think those engineers held executive roles? They just weren’t executives of Volkswagen.
They would have had to say executives of Volkswagen (insert whatever specifics of the subsidiary), for it to be the correct term. Engineers is simpler and easier and is the proper way to express the situation.
Your “point” muddies the water and needs to bring on multiple additional pieces of information, which would also need to be described. Most people would know these engineers held executives roles, with some part farther down the “executive” chain.
You can be an engineer for Volkswagen, while also being the executive for Volkswagen US NW division, but it’s irrelevant to the article and requires more completely unnecessary information, so in the effort of good journalism and brevity….
Great, fine, whatever, bye
Unless I misunderstood something?
Nah, I get what you're saying, but we're used to engineers and regular workers getting arrested here. We've got one of the most... comprehensive?.. prison systems in the world. It's just so rare to find executives and anyone making over $300k suffer any real consequences.
Seems like it also doesn’t happen in Germany, as the post title doesn’t match the article.
The two people sent to jail are middle managers (Head of XY), not executives.
Why aim low, why not public flogging, and pillories?
How about we don't bring back corporal punishment. I get the sentiment, but i'd rather our justice system didn't turn into a torture system.
why do you hate success?
Success = falsifying emissions tests.
that's how real people get ahead in life while the peasants work
lol which group do you identify as?
the temporarily embarrassed billionaires, obviously
any day now! I will ascendant 🤡
I know! Let's elect a demented rapist who has no idea how anything works or even how to finish a thought! We'll be rich immediately!
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