this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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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?