Will any Volkswagen senior executives be brought to justice in the United States for their role in the emissions testing scandal? While eight VW executives have been indicted, only one executive has been arrested. It was Oliver Schmidt, a Volkswagen AG executive who was arrested In January when departing the United States from a Christmas vacation. One other lower-level U.S. employee has been indicted and has pled guilty. The remaining five executives who have been indicted live in Germany, which is disinclined to extradite its citizens to the United States for trial. Of those five indicted, none were senior executives in the company.
Now, however, the Justice Department may be changing its strategy, as it has charged a former executive at VW’s luxury car brand Audi, Zaccheo Giovanni Pamio. The key difference that facilitated the arrest of Pamio, which happened in Germany, is that he was an Italian citizen living in Germany who was not a German citizen. While Pamio is seen to be a smaller player in the burgeoning scandal, the complaint filed against him alleges he acted under pressure to aid in the defeat device software development. More critically, he is alleged to have presented to at least one board member of the company about how the software for the defeat device worked.
