The United States Justice Department has issued Volkswagen AG (ADR) (OTCMKTS:VLKAY) a subpoena under a bank fraud law, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act. This follow the probe into its diesel emissions cheating scandal. The law was meant to investigate big financial institutions, enabling the department to probe the fraud itself.
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Ready To Cooperate With The Government
For its part, Volkswagen refused to talk about the subpoena or ongoing discussions with regulators. However, the German automaker indicated that it was ready to cooperate with every agency of the government. The law has been implemented against auto loan finance firms in the recent past in addition to other companies.
Following the admission of installing software in eleven million vehicles enabling them to emit a maximum of 40 times allowable pollution in real driving conditions, the company has been under the cloud of constant investigations. Inquiries into the carmaker have increased the total number of suspects to 17. At the same time, the issue did not stop the company from paying bonuses to its staff for the last year.
Judge Imposes Deadline
In February, Volkswagen was given a deadline of March 24 by a Federal judge to come up with a solution for the problematic cars. The company is expected to find an emissions fix for an estimated 600,000 diesel vehicles in America.
Similarly, in January, Volkswagen’s European wing was sued by the Department of Justice in the United States for a maximum of $46 billion for violating environmental laws. The regulator placed a ban on selling diesel Audis and Porsches in the US. The automaker appears to be facing over 500 lawsuits from American car owners.
