No. Nothing will happen to top executives.
There's a lot of insight as to why from "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"
There's a lot of insight as to why from "The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department Fails to Prosecute Executives"
Quoting directly FTA: "U.S. prosecutors have charged eight current and former Volkswagen executives in connection with the diesel emissions cheating probe. Liang is one of the lowest-ranking executives charged so far.
Another VW executive, Oliver Schmidt, has pleaded guilty and is scheduled to be sentenced in Detroit on Dec. 6. Under a plea agreement, Schmidt could face up to seven years in prison and a fine of between $40,000 and $400,000 after admitting to conspiring to mislead U.S regulators and violating clean air laws."
This thread is fulling of people who didn't read a tiny well written article.
Not what would come to people's mind when "executive" is mentioned.
But I'm sure VW wants you to think their high level executives are being punished.
If the article is wrong then we should be talking about that (and the other executives that the article claims were charged) and not just presuming things.
If a sales executive considered executive?
If a person has 5 reports, is he/she an executive?
It's impossible to be wrong to call everyone working in a company "executive", and both VW and DOJ know this.
I suppose it might not well written, but it certainly is concise. This took me about 90 seconds to read in full. That is entirely reasonable to read before posting.
They have no trouble charging engineers and low level managers, but then it stops. It's not my cynicism because it happened so many times.
DOJ has no trouble charging a Goldman Sachs trader, but will never charge C-suite executives.
Read the book.
Don't be surprised when you get the same results.