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Volkswagen's supervisory and management boards last month
recommended that shareholders ratify actions taken by the
management board in 2015, because an investigation of the
carmaker's emissions scandal had until then failed to uncover
potential wrongdoing by senior managers.
But prosecutors in Braunschweig, near VW's Wolfsburg
headquarters, are now investigating former VW CEO Martin
Winterkorn and VW brand chief Herbert Diess over whether they
effectively manipulated markets by delaying the release of
information about the firm's emissions test cheating.
Porsche SE, which owns 52 percent of Volkswagen's (VW) voting
rights, "will vote to discharge the management and supervisory
boards," a spokesman said on Wednesday ahead of VW's shareholder
meeting in Hanover, Germany.
The shareholder conference, VW's first since its emissions
scandal broke in September, is expected to air rage among
investors and private shareholders about the scandal which will
cost VW billions, has forced out its long-standing CEO and
tarnished its reputation.
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters late on Tuesday
that VW's supervisory board has chosen to back the previous
recommendation because internal investigations of the scandal
until now have shown that no former management board member was
in serious breach of duties in 2015.
Even Diess, the former BMW development chief who was hired by VW
last July to turn around the troubled namesake brand, has the
backing of the supervisory board despite the probe, the person
said.
VW declined to comment.
(Reporting by Ilona Wissenbach and Andreas Cremer, editing by
Louise Heavens)
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