“The Brunswick public prosecutor's office announced today that it had brought an indictment against the former Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, Prof. Martin Winterkorn, as well as against the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Hans Dieter Pötsch, and the Chairman of the Board of Management, Herbert Diess, for the charge of alleged market manipulation. The allegations will now be examined by an independent court.

In the run-up to this decision, Volkswagen has cooperated closely with the public prosecutor's office. The Supervisory Board has also dealt in detail with the investigation of the public prosecutor’s office and has respect for the public prosecutor’s office’s work. Nevertheless, based on its own extensive and independent investigations since autumn 2015, the Executive Committee still can, also from today’s perspective, not see that the capital market was deliberately not informed. In addition to the presumption of innocence in general, there are, among other things, also the following specific aspects that speak against the charge of market manipulation:

Based on the findings available, the Executive Committee is therefore of the opinion that, prior to the publication of the Notice of Violation, the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG did not have sufficiently concrete indications that would have led to the obligation to inform the capital market immediately.

For this reason, the successful cooperation with the Chairman of the Supervisory Board and the Chairman of the Board of Management shall be continued.

The Supervisory Board will convene tomorrow for an extraordinary meeting”.