Police and prosecutors searched the premises of the automotive supplier Continental in their investigations into the diesel exhaust gas scandal at VW. The investigators had visited offices in Hanover, Frankfurt and Regensburg, said Continental.
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The reason is the investigation of shutdown devices used by VW in diesel engines. The company is cooperating with the authorities, it said. Continental did not comment on the state of the proceedings.
However, the Dax group confirmed its position from previous reviews: “We did not deliver software to any of our customers for the purpose of manipulating emissions test values,” he said of the raid previously reported by “Wirtschaftswoche”. With the Conti software, according to the company, the “emission limit values valid in the respective period could basically be met”.
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Investigation against seven Conti engineers
“We are investigating Continental employees for their fraud allegations and submitting false documentation,” said prosecutor Oliver Eisenhauer, the Reuters news agency said. Accordingly, seven engineers and two project managers were among the suspects. Two managers and a compliance officer are involved in the investigation.
The exhaust gas affair at Volkswagen was exposed in September 2015. The car manufacturer had installed manipulated exhaust gas purification systems in diesel vehicles in the USA, which showed significantly lower nitrogen oxide emissions in test operations than those that actually occurred on the road. The question later arose as to whether suppliers might also have been privy to the intent to deceive. You deny this.
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In January, the Japanese manufacturer Mitsubishi was also suspected of cheating diesel buyers with illegal shutdown devices. During a raid in four federal states, investigators searched the business premises of the German Mitsubishi subsidiary, a subsidiary and two large suppliers. Continental employees were listed as witnesses in the process.
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