FRANKFURT: German prosecutors on Thursday said that they were investigating whether a Volkswagen AG (VW) manager encouraged employees to destroy or remove documents last year, shortly before the US Environmental Protection Agency publicly accused the automaker of illegally manipulating US emissions tests.
Volkswagen employees have told investigators that a person in a supervisory position sent clear signals in August last year that they should remove evidence.
While the person was not explicit, “everyone understood,” said Klaus Ziehe, a spokesman for the state’s attorney in Braunschweig, Germany.
The investigation, previously reported by several German news organizations, could raise the stakes for Volkswagen, which is already under intense scrutiny by authorities in the US, Germany and other countries.
The EPA formally accused Volkswagen of clean air violations on Sept. 18 last year. The company has maintained in court documents that top executives of the company did not grasp the gravity of the accusations until shortly before the EPA announcement.
If a Volkswagen manager was signaling employees to remove documents in August, it suggests that at least some people in supervisory positions were aware of the possible grave repercussions.
Ziehe said that employees transferred some electronic documents to thumb drives, which have been recovered, and that prosecutors do not believe that much, if any, information was lost.
Prosecutors did not disclose the name of the German suspect or his job description, in line with German privacy laws.
A person close to the automaker, who declined to be named because of the continuing investigation, said the suspect was a member of Volkswagen’s legal staff and has been suspended from his job.
It is not the first time Volkswagen has faced accusations that employees tried to impede investigations into widespread cheating on diesel emissions tests.
In March, a former Volkswagen employee filed a whistle-blower lawsuit in Michigan, asserting that coworkers illegally deleted electronic data shortly after the US government accused the automaker of cheating on emissions tests.
The former employee, Daniel Donovan, said he was fired from his job as an information manager at a Volkswagen facility in Auburn Hills, Michigan, because his superiors believed that he was about to report the company to the authorities for obstruction of justice.
Ziehe said he did not know whether there was any connection between the Braunschweig investigation, which focuses on a Volkswagen employee based in Germany, and the alleged destruction of data in the US reported by Donovan.
Prosecutors have said they have identified 17 suspects in a wider investigation into who was responsible for installing software in 11 million diesel vehicles that was designed to mislead regulators about the cars’ emissions of nitrogen oxide.
The prosecutors in Braunschweig, a city near Volkswagen’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, have not filed formal charges against any of the suspects.
Ziehe said it would most likely be several more months before prosecutors determined if they had enough evidence to make arrests.
