The headline says "execs" but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms. Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether.
It would be unlikely (not impossible) that board members would be briefed about ongoing criminal behaviour, and certainly not something so deep into operations as how the ECU is being programmed.
Can a board member be reasonably responsible for the actions of tens of thousands of employees if they have not explicitly enabled or condoned criminal behaviour?
The person that would benefit the most would be a senior executive who stands to gain a promotion, bonus or land an even better job elsewhere.
A former prime minister of my country was fined over $6 million for being on the board of a company what traded while insolvent. Not a prison sentence but a harsh penalty for someone that was not super rich (as far as I am aware).
> Can a board member be reasonably responsible for the actions of tens of thousands of employees if they have not explicitly enabled or condoned criminal behaviour?
Not sure what the answer is, but if the answer is yes, then that incentivizes them to build the oversight and reporting capabilities to be able to steer away from crime, and to hire noncriminal subordinates &c.
One way this could look in practice is board members having to post a large bond that gets taken away if the commpany is found to commit crimes during their tenure.
Anecdotically, the Real Madrid requires a large bond (57M) posted by the president. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/8076515.stm
They should at least be barred from being board members for a certain period of time.
Why, if they did nothing wrong and had no knowledge of anything illegal?
It is extremely rare to see that kind of prosecution in western countries (US or EU).
Because they should have known. They should have made it their business to know. Looking the other way on purpose should not be a valid legal defense.
> Looking the other way on purpose
Hell even if not on purpose. The point of a board is oversight. If management can commit illegal acts without the board's knowledge, the board has failed. Of course incompetence in a board role shouldn't lead to prison. But it should at least bar someone from future board jobs for a few years.
Pour encourager les autres. If there's illegality going on at a company and the board doesn't know about it, future boards will make sure they are better informed.
>but I don't see any Board members getting prison terms.
The head of development, a board member, got a suspended sentence.
>Martin Winterkorn, the CEO, has basically escaped prosecution altogether.
How so?
Suspended sentence…not prison.
Winterkorn has spent the past decade getting various postponements in his trial. Now that he is approaching 80 it is unlikely he will suffer any serious punishment.
The US indicted seven senior executives including Martin Winterkorn in 2017 [1]. None of these seven were extradited from Germany to the US to face trial.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-ceo-volkswage...
You are repeating it here as if it was legal for Germany to extradite Germans to USA