FRANKFURT, Germany -- A German court has ruled that former Volkswagen Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn must stand trial on fraud charges in the company's diesel emission scandal in which it sold cars with software that let the company cheat on emissions tests.
The three-judge panel in Braunschweig in Volkswagen's home region of Lower Saxony ruled that car buyers suffered financial losses when they bought cars without being aware that they were equipped with illegal software. The court found a "predominant likelihood" of conviction in the fraud charge.
"The fraud charges concern 9 million vehicles sold in Europe and the U.S.," the court said in an emailed statement. "Buyers may have lost 100 million euros" (roughly $118 million dollars).
Winterkorn's lawyer Felix Doerr welcomed that the court reduced the charges against his clients, making them much narrower.
It said four other defendants would face trial on charges of fraud related to aggravated tax evasion and illegal advertising. Dates for a public trial are to be set later.
Winterkorn, who denied wrongdoing, resigned from Volkswagen days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a notice of violation on Sept. 18, 2015. The company had for years been using software that recognized when vehicles were on test stands and turned emission controls on, then turned the emission controls off during normal driving. As a result, the cars emitted far more than the legal U.S. limit of nitrogen oxide, a pollutant that harms people's health.
Winterkorn also faces criminal charges in the U.S. but cannot be extradited. Volkswagen paid more than $33 billion in fines and settlements over the scandal.
The three-judge panel did not accept all accusations leveled by prosecutors when they first charged Winterkorn in April 2019. Among other issues, the court said in a news release that it did not approve charges of unfair competition related to the vehicle's advertising in the U.S. The court also announced a preliminary finding that rejected prosecutors' claim that defendants should repay their bonuses, saying the company, not they, were the financial beneficiaries of the misconduct.
Information for this article was contributed by Karin Matussek of Bloomberg News.