Advertisement

U.S. regulator raps Volkswagen's culture change: Handelsblatt

FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is pictured during the Volkswagen Group's annual general meeting in Berlin, Germany, May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: A Volkswagen logo is pictured during the Volkswagen Group's annual general meeting in Berlin, Germany, May 3, 2018. REUTERS/Axel Schmidt/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official said he is not satisfied with Volkswagen's efforts to improve accountability after its diesel emissions fraud, German newspaper Handelsblatt reported on Thursday.

"The VW story is not over yet, not for VW and not for the EPA," the business daily quoted Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality as saying.

Soon after the emissions scandal broke in September 2015, the German automaker pledged to reform its closed-off corporate culture, seen by experts as a factor that facilitated the cheating, and become a more transparent business.

But some senior managers including previous chief executive Matthias Mueller have said the task of learning from past mistakes and introducing change was proving harder than expected.

"What matters to the EPA is compliance where the spirit of laws is respected rather than just the text of the law. I absolutely want to hear from VW what their efforts to this end look like and how they make sure that such a thing (like the emissions scandal) will never happen again," Grundler said.

Handelsblatt also quoted Larry Thompson, the U.S. monitor appointed under the 2017 plea agreement to oversee VW for three years, as saying that he is "not at all satisfied" with the progress of culture change.

VW was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; Editing by Adrian Croft)

See Also: