The most famous sports car in the world, except for, arguably, the Chevrolet Corvette, is behind a huge takeover scandal and stock market scam.
The so-called Higher Regional Court of Stuttgart will try two former executive board members of Porsche Automobil Holding SE in the aborted takeover caper where Porsche attempted to win control of the Volkswagen Group. Exactly the opposite happened – VW swallowed Porsche whole – in one of the most amusing cases of automotive greed and piracy on record.
The prosecution is accusing the former chairman of the executive board, Wendelin Wiedeking, and former CFO, Holger Härter, of committing market manipulation in connection with the acquisition of the investment in Volkswagen AG by Porsche SE in 2008.
Additional charges including breach of fiduciary duty, trading-based market manipulation and infringement of requirements of the ad hoc publishing duties had been previously dropped by the public prosecutor.
In a statement, Porsche said “five years after the public prosecutor commenced investigations, these proceedings can be dealt with in court so that the accused can clear all allegations against them.”
