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 Leading German carmakers Daimler, Volkswagen and BMW immediately
said they would hand back the once-coveted annual "Yellow Angel"
awards after the audit found irregularities in the counting and
ordering.
The revelations have battered the reputation of the ADAC, which
before it first admitted wrongdoing last month was one of Germany's
most respected institutions with 19 million members.
ADAC president Peter Meyer resigned just before publication of the
external audit, which found the order of four of the first five
places had been manipulated.
"This is the most serious crisis in our 111-year history," said
August Markl, ADAC's vice president, who will take over from Meyer
until the next general assembly in May. Thousands of ADAC members
have left in disgust.
Markl vowed to bring sweeping reforms to ADAC, which has also come
under fire for charging inflated prices for car batteries to
stranded motorists. Top executives have also been attacked for
inappropriate use of rescue helicopters and jets.
GERMAN GOV'T. WANTS REFORMS
But Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the ADAC would need to be
reorganized. "The current set up of ADAC's organization led to these
mistakes," Maas said. "They need to be changed."
The scandal erupted last month when it emerged that its popular
"ADAC Motorwelt" magazine had massively inflated readership votes
for the "Yellow Angel" award for Germany's favorite car.
ADAC had said that 34,299 motorists endorsed the Volkswagen Golf in
an award to determine the most popular car in Germany.
Auditor Deloitte on Monday said only 3,271 votes had been cast for
the vehicle, with the accountants adding it found evidence of
"willful manipulation" as well as technologically flawed processing
of data.
Deloitte examined thousands of pieces of computer data and conducted
interviews with ADAC employees. It said the since-departed director
of ADAC communications, Peter Ramstetter, had simulated different
scenarios on his computer about how the number and order of the
votes could be manipulated.
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ADAC at first said the total number of votes had been manipulated
but not the order.
BMW's 3-series car, for instance, should have been in second place
behind the Volkswagen Golf based on votes submitted, but
inexplicably did not even make it into the top five. The BMW's
5-series was instead inserted in fifth place.
Volkswagen, which won the Yellow Angel with its Volkswagen Golf
model at the end of January, said it would return the award. Daimler
said it would return all the Yellow Angels it had been awarded in
previous years.
"Awards by the public are of great importance to Daimler, since
these reflect the public's opinion. A prerequisite for this is that
readership votes are conducted in a correct manner. This was not the
case with the Yellow Angel," Daimler said.
ADAC said Deloitte would now examine the voting in the years from
2005 to 2013 because it had found similarities in how the prize had
been awarded in those years.
ADAC stands for Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club. Its car test
reports are followed closely in a country with a deep affinity for
its automobiles.
(Reporting by Edward Taylor, Jan Schwartz and Irene Preisinger;
writing by Erik Kirschbaum; editing by Tom Heneghan)
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