Volkswagen's Secret Deal With The US Before Scandal Broke

Far from having promoted transparency, Volkswagen instead attempted to inconspicuously settle the issue of diesel emissions by reaching an agreement with the United States authorities, says German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung.

"How could Volkswagen possibly maintain the diesel emissions scandal secrecy ?" was Süddeutsche Zeitung 's Monday title front page.

Munich daily got hold of documents revealing not only that the auto maker representatives knew about the diesel engines manoeuvring before making them public, but also that they were actually hoping to make a secret deal with the US, by reaching an agreement with the authorities.

"The finance director then, currently Chairman of the Board, Hans Dieter Pötsch, hoped that he would get off with a hundred million euros fine", says the newspaper, based on a 111 pages report Volskswagen submitted to the Brunswick Court ahead of his defense against the shareholders' compensation claims.

Today, the company faces a several billions dollars penalties.

"In this document, a higher confidentiality interest is at stake." Until very recently, this affair affecting around 11 million vehicles let us think that the auto maker had been taken completely off guard by the American environment police's revelations, and also that Martin Winterkorn had to resign quite hastily.

Last week Volkswagen made public a chronology of the affair showing that former CEO had been informed of illegalities six weeks before the scandal was eventually unearthed, and eventually that he could have been aware of it from May 2014.