Volkswagen’s chief financial officer Frank Witter has apparently been expecting disastrous numbers for a long time, as he presented a huge loss to the world’s largest carmaker in the first half of 2020 last week. However, according to Business Insider, Witter was much more shocked by the wiretapping affair, which exposed a conspiracy in which the Germans systematically destroyed cooperation with company from Bosnia and Herzegovina “Prevent” for years, Avaz news portal reports.
According to the German media, a VW employee secretly recorded and transmitted secret strategic sessions between 2017 and 2018, was discovered and fired, and the investigation was initiated by the prosecution.
The state prosecutor’s office has already started an investigation.
“It was really surprising to many that there were audio recordings of internal meetings in Volkswagen and that they came out in public. According to Business Insider, high representatives of car manufacturers received concrete evidence in early 2018 that the company was spying. The hint came from Prevent,” it was stated in the media.
In numerous letters to supervisory and management boards, the Bosnian group of companies then wrote that it had received secret documents. Prevent spokesman confirmed that Prevent received snippets of written documents anonymously from the whistleblowers in the period from 2017 to 2018.
“At no point did we receive audio recordings aimed to terminate contracts with Prevent, and directly weaken the position of the BiH company in the market,” it was stated by Prevent.
The company, which is seeking damage in excess of more than $ 750 million, said that after the diesel emissions scandal, Volkswagen used its market power to pressure smaller suppliers and prevent any acquisitions in order to reduce costs.
Lower-level Volkswagen suppliers had no other choice but to go bankrupt or to comply with Volkswagen’s “unfair terms and prices,” as Prevent said in a statement.
In 2016, Volkswagen and two of its suppliers, who were part of Prevent, resolved a contract dispute that had hit production at more than half of German automaker factories and threatened to disrupt its recovery from the diesel emissions scandal, Vijesti.ba news portal reports.
