A million fine will not make the former Audi boss poor

Observers were waiting for these words for a long time: “I have to accept the allegations in general,” explained Ulrike Thole-Groll, a former lawyer.Audi boss Rupert Stadler, in mid-May before the Munich district court. For the first time, the accused in the role of the former CEO has admitted to wrongdoing in the diesel scandal. “I didn’t know, but I realized it was possible and accepted that the quality of diesel engines may not meet the requirements of the legal approval,” Stadler explained vaguely. During his time as Audi boss, he is said to have prevented hundreds of thousands of diesel cars from being sold by fraudulent software. In addition, he had to say – another secret development – that he had failed to ensure that the buyers of the cars were informed of a defect that might have been built into them.