Ex-VW CEO: 'I would have stopped' the cheating but 'I wasn't informed'

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Martin Winterkorn

Former Volkswagen Group CEO Martin Winterkorn disavowed personal involvement in the automaker's emissions scandal, telling a German parliamentary panel that he would have stopped it if he had known, according to several reports.

Winterkorn, who resigned days after the scandal erupted in September 2015, spoke publicly about the matter for the first time Thursday in his testimony before German lawmakers.

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"It's incomprehensible why I wasn't informed early and clearly," Winterkorn said in Berlin, according to Bloomberg. "I would have prevented any type of deception or misleading of authorities."

In one particularly revealing exchange, according to German publication Handelsblatt, Winterkorn denied preexisting knowledge of the term used by U.S. regulators to describe the software VW engineers used to evade emissions standards: "defeat device."

German prosecutors are investigating whether Winterkorn and other company executives failed to adequately disclose the financial risks of the scandal when they learned about it.

Volkswagen has acknowledged that a memo on an outside study conducted by the International Council on Clean Transportation, which eventually led to the scandal's exposure, was delivered to Winterkorn on May 23, 2014. "Whether and to which extent Mr. Winterkorn took notice of this memo at that time is not documented," VW said in March 2016.

An automaker of Volkswagen's size — the company is the second-largest in the world — encounters numerous product issues, the company noted. Many of those problems are not important enough to draw the attention of senior leaders.

But Winterkorn was told directly about the diesel irregularities in a meeting July 27, 2015, where now-VW brand chairman Herbert Diess was also informed of the issue, VW has said.

"It is not clear whether these participants understood already at this point in time that the change in the software violated U.S. environmental regulations," VW said in March. "Mr. Winterkorn asked for further clarification of the issue."

Despite a reputation for an intense interest in details, Winterkorn told the committee Thursday that "it is not the case" that he knew about the cheating and that he still wants "satisfactory answers," according to the Associated Press.

Still, he refused to say when he initially learned about the matter, according to the Financial Times. He also did not proffer an estimate for how many people were involved.

"As CEO I took political responsibility," he said, according to the AP. "Believe me, this step was the most difficult of my life."

Volkswagen last week agreed to plead guilty to weaving a vast conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and obstructing a federal investigation into its violation of emissions standards, with prosecutors also charging six individual German VW executives for their alleged roles in the scheme.

Altogether, the company is paying some $22 billion in penalties and settlements, including a deal with U.S. consumers to buy back or repair diesel vehicles fitted with the bogus software.