German court bars discussion of emissions scandal files in Audi case

A German labor court on Tuesday disallowed the public disclosure of files associating with Volkswagen’s emissions scandal during a hearing for wrongful termination brought by a previous worker at Volkswagen subsidiary Audi.

The hearing in Heilbronn in southern Germany started in public but Audi’s lawyers asked for privacy when the plaintiff’s lawyer discussed an e-mail exchange in 2012 between engineers about emissions of Audi vehicles in the United States.

The court accepted Audi’s motion and judge Carsten Witt told observers to leave the hearing so the e-mails and other files could be discussed behind closed doors.

“I regret that the public was barred,” stated Hans-Georg Kauffeld, the attorney for Ulrich Weiss, the engineer who was fired by Audi recently following examinations into the scandal.

Kauffeld declined to discuss anymore to reporters.

Audi confessed in November 2015 that its 3.0 liter V6 diesel engines were fitted with an auxiliary control device regarded prohibited in the United States that allowed vehicles to evade U.S. emission limitations.

Volkswagen in December agreed to a $1 billion settlement to repair or buy back about 80,000 polluting diesel cars offered in the nation.

Audi’s lawyer, Christian Bitsch of law firm Bluedex, informed the court on Tuesday that Kauffeld’s client learnt about the emissions in September 2015 however failed to notify his superiors. Bitsch also accused the engineer of damaging files and motivating his staff to do same.

Kauffeld turned down the claims.