A Volkswagen AG (VW) engineer on Friday pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud regulators and car owners, in the first criminal charges stemming from the US investigation into the German automaker’s emissions deception.
The plea by the engineer, James Robert Liang, a Volkswagen veteran, suggests that the US Department of Justice is trying to build a larger criminal case and pursue charges against other higher-level executives at the automaker.
Liang was central in the development of software that Volkswagen used to cheat pollution tests in the US, which the company admitted last year to installing in more than 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.
He was also part of the cover-up, lying to regulators when they started asking questions about discrepancies in emissions.
Liang’s admissions, made in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, portray a broader conspiracy by executives, making Liang a potentially valuable resource for the developing criminal investigation.
The department said Liang, who faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, would cooperate.
The Volkswagen case has escalated quickly.
In June, the department and other agencies secured a record US$15 billion settlement in a civil suit with the company. At the time, officials were quick to say that the settlement was just a first step, adding that they would aggressively pursue a criminal case against the company and individuals.
Liang’s case followed the same broad strokes. He was also named as a main suspect in a suit filed against Volkswagen on Thursday by Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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