Volkswagen AG (www.volkswagenag.com) pleaded guilty on 10 March to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice and entry of goods by false statement in a scheme to get around US pollution rules on around 600,000 diesel vehicles.

VW general counsel Manfred Doess told a court in Detroit that the company was “guilty on all three counts”, and that the criminal acts occurred in both Germany and the USA. John Neal, an assistant US attorney, told the US district court that the scheme “was well thought-out and went to the top of the organisation”.

The German car maker has already agreed to pay $4.3 billion in civil and criminal penalties. US regulators first began investigating VW’s software after West Virginia University researchers discovered differences between testing and real-world emissions.

VW at first denied the use of a ‘defeat device’ but finally admitted it in September 2015. Sentencing is due to take place next month.

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that she knew nothing of VW’s cheating on diesel emissions until a day after the US government disclosed it, and she later told then-CEO Martin Winterkorn that VW had put the German
car industry’s reputation at risk.

Mrs Merkel, who served as Germany’s environment minister during the 1990s, told an investigating committee in Berlin: “I explicitly reject describing this incident as a gigantic scandal.”

She added that VW should “not be vilified”, since it provides so many jobs.