Volkswagen personnel managers found not guilty in payments case

Four personnel managers from German car giant Volkswagen were found not guilty on Tuesday of giving inappropriately high salaries to influential employee representatives.

Prosecutors had argued that the accused had given excessive remuneration and bonuses to the head of the VW Group's works council and other high-ranking employee representatives, amounting to more than 5 million euros.

But the judges in the city of Braunschweig sided with the defence lawyers, who had argued for an acquittal throughout. The defendants were one current and three former personnel managers.

"It would help all personnel managers in large companies if the legal environment was better regulated," said one of the defendants, former personnel manager Horst Neumann.

Much of the case focussed on the remuneration and bonuses given to works council chief Bernd Osterloh between 2011 and 2016.

In high bonus years, he received total remuneration of up to 750,000 euros.

As a witness in the trial, he said he was "not involved in any remuneration determination concerning my person."

A legal assessment of the remuneration was seen as difficult from the beginning because the relevant laws leave a lot of room for interpretation. For example, they do not define salary ranges for management tasks.

Explaining its judgement, the court also referred to the problem with current laws, and believed "it would be the task of the legislator to provide very clear solutions here," according court spokesman Stefan Bauer-Schade.