>Start a company and steal billions from your customers and/or the tax payer, and you will probably get away with it.
In this case not only were the managers personally held liable, the company itself also had to pay vast amounts of compensation to customers. Not only in Germany or the EU, but also to US customers.
> not only were the managers personally held liable
Yes but not all of them. The top one is still evading justice.
He’s not evading justice if he was never involved. That’s the whole point of having a 4 year trial, so you can figure out who was actually guilty.
Good luck proving where the decision was made. Volkswagen's CEO is unlikely to have been asked whether to be 'creative' about testing setups.