Some senior Volkswagen managers have an interesting choice: Stay in Germany for the foreseeable future, or risk being extradited to the US for their alleged roles in the company's diesel emissions cheating scandal.
To avoid the latter scenario, senior managers at the company have been advised to avoid traveling to the US, Reuters reported on Friday. The news comes after the US Justice Department this week announced that six VW executives and employees have been indicted in connection with the conspiracy to cheat on emissions tests.
On the list of those charged is Oliver Schmidt, head of VW's regulatory compliance office from 2014 to early 2015, who was taken into custody by the FBI on Sunday while visiting Miami, and appeared in federal court there Monday.
As Reuters notes, German citizens can only be extradited to other European Union countries, or to an international court. But if they leave Germany, it's a different story and they risk being extradited to the US.
So, "several Volkswagen managers have been advised not to travel to the United States," an unnamed legal adviser to VW told Reuters. A second source told the news outlet that the warning also extended to managers who have not been charged.
"One doesn't need to test the limits," the source told Reuters.
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VW did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the report.
The company this week agreed to plead guilty and pay $4.3 billion in criminal and civil penalties in relation to the scandal. That's on top of a historic $14.7 billion civil settlement announced in June and a $1 billion settlement handed down in December.
Meanwhile on the diesel emissions scandal front, word has it that Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could be facing criminal charges over its use of "engine management software" to skirt pollution laws. The issue came to light this week with the US Environmental Protection Agency accusing Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of violating the Clean Air Act for installing and failing to disclose the presence of the software, which allowed some of its diesel vehicles to emit more nitrogen oxide than is permitted by law. Now, Bloomberg says that the Department of Justice is investigating the matter.