Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/18/the-ceo-of-audi-arrested-in-ge.html
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Turns out that guy was criminal AF.
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this is what we need more of in the USA
Hold the C-level accountable - and arrest, trial, jail…
the bankers on Wall Street LAUGH every time there is a blowout. they KNOW the government will bail them out, and they wil get off free and clear, to rape BILLIONS out of the economy, hurting tons people… but oh well? ZERO Accountability
Arrest - Jail - Trial - BAD PUBLICITY
I bet the NEXT CEO at Audi does not try these shenanigans?
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It’s almost as if they have rule of law there.
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We have rule of law here too; we just don’t have the political will or cojones to go the distance.
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Oh we could extradite him if we wanted to. We just have to start with banning the sale of VW/Audi/Porsche in the US. He’ll be on the first plane over.
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Doesn’t that mean we don’t have rule of law here? More of a “rule of law if you are poor” don’t you think?
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When a large corporation in the United States has committed massive fraud, the CEO usually retires with a large bonus and the corporation receives a modest cost-of-business fine.
The United States filed criminal charges against former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn in May
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This is obscene. It’s a crime against humanity.
Rich people aren’t supposed to go to jail, only grotty little Poors.
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So… if things are on track and our government is following in Germany’s historic goosesteps, then we can expect to start jailing CEOs in about 97 years. Still plenty of time to pillage. Rest easy, American CEOs.
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I will buy a plane ticket to anywhere in Germany for Jamie Dimon!
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The US banks, corps, and financial institutions have a sweetheart deal. When they make money, they get to keep it all. When they lose money, the debt is socialized and taxpayers bail them out.
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yep. well stated - clear and concise - our (US) problem exactly.
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I love the story of VW and Porsche. VW auto group owns Porsche. But who owns VW?
The Porsche family. During the friendly/hostile takeover in 2008 the Porsche family executed a stock ploy known as a “short squeeze”, (BTW, illegal in the US) essentially causing prices to rise so rapidly that people trying to bet against them lost their shirts. (Short sellers couldn’t buy until the near end of the options expiration.)
Lawsuits were threatened, civil trials were launched but in the end, nobody did any time or paid any penalties.
Wonderful products, fine craftsmanship, a totally ruthless family with a history of ugly civil wars between them.
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There must be a defibrillator nearby… (Re: Peter Schuler, an executive for Madrigal Electromotive)
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The Porsche family actually “owns” about 31% of Volkswagen AG, in the sense that their stock holdings amount to 31% of the company’s market capitalisation. Other major stockholders are the German state of Lower Saxony (~12%) and the emirate Qatar (~15%). The remaining 42% belong to various smaller stockholders. There are common and non-voting stocks and the Porsche family currently controls around 52% of the voting stocks (20% are with the state of Lower Saxony), while for the most part the smaller stockholders don’t get to vote.
Porsche tried to take over VW in 2008 but didn’t manage to go through with it in the end. The “short squeeze” was less of a deliberate ploy but a consequence of the fact that Porsche claimed to own or control up to 74.1% of VW common stock (at which point they could nearly have forced the takeover), and with the 20% of common stock held by the state of Lower Saxony that left less than 6% of VW common stock available for trading. Since various entities (mostly hedge fonds), expecting stock prices to go down, had gone short on VW to the tune of around 12% of stock, that resulted in a “short squeeze” since the short sellers couldn’t buy enough stock to cover their positions, which drove up the stock price quite dramatically. In principle, short sales of stock are regulated both in the USA and the EU, although the details differ.
I agree that the antics of the Porsche and Piëch families would make prime soap opera material.
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It sounds like you don’t understand what “rule of law” means. We have laws here, but we don’t have rule of law unless everyone is equally subject to those laws.
Puff as they continue like this all responsible for German car makers will
be arrested, first was Volkswagen but it seems that everyone has done
the same technique. They try to sell us more ecological cars but they are the ones that falsify the gas contamination tests. They have realized now but how many years have they been doing the same and consumers believing that each time less contaminated
