Fired employee says Volkswagen deleted documents about emissions tests
Source: Reuters
Fired employee says Volkswagen deleted documents about emissions tests
Reuters
Monday 14 March 2016 20.17 GMT
Volkswagen deleted documents and obstructed justice after the US Environmental Protection Agency accused the company of cheating on emissions tests, a former employee alleged in a lawsuit.
Daniel Donovan says in a whistleblower case that he was wrongfully fired on 6 December 2015 after refusing to participate in the deletions and reporting them to a supervisor. The lawsuit says the evidence deletion continued for three days after the 18 September allegations from the EPA and despite a hold order from the Justice Department.
The accusations came to light on Monday as European investors in Volkswagen filed a multibillion-euro suit against the carmaker for what they see as breaches of its capital markets duty in the emissions scandal.
VW has admitted that it programmed about 600,000 diesel-powered cars in the US to turn on pollution controls during EPA treadmill tests and turn them off when the cars were on the road. The agency alleges that the cars emit as much as 40 times the allowable amount of nitrogen oxide, which can cause respiratory problems.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/mar/14/volkwagen-whistleblower-deleted-documents-emissions-tests