Volkswagen’s external compliance monitor on Monday stated he did not agreed with some Volkswagen executives’ use of privacy and attorney client privilege rights to withhold details regarding a $27 billion global emissions cheating scandal.
The German automaker was ordered by the United States Department of Justice to provide three yearly reports examining its breaches to Larry Thompson, a former deputy U.S. attorney general, after it admitted manipulating pollution tests.
Thompson is now acting as an Independent Compliance Auditor (ICA) as part of a plea agreement settled after U.S. authorities blew the whistle on the automaker’s excessive diesel pollution on September 18, 2015.
“With respect to the VW defendants’ assertions of privilege and work product, the ICA has disagreed with some of the VW defendants’ assertions,” Thompson’s interim report stated on Monday.
“The VW defendants have promised more improvements in their provision of information, and boosted the frequency of discussions with the ICA regarding this topic.”
Thompson’s role is to make sure VW’s systems conform to recent compliance standards.
In last year, the ICA identified 176 “corrective actions” to be taken by Volkswagen and a further 240, in this year, the report said without giving further detail.
Since 2015, Volkswagen has stated that its diesel cheating was the work of low level executives.
But previously this year, Rupert Stadler, the chief executive of VW’s premium brand Audi, was remanded in custody for possible obstruction of justice related to an emissions investigation, and U.S. authorities have filed criminal charges against former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn.
Both executives reject misbehavior.