Porsche Fined Half a Billion Euro, Gets Off the Hook in Dieselgate

The sports car maker was under investigation for a while now, as local authorities were trying to determine the scope of its involvement in cheating emission regulations and the people or departments responsible for the biggest scandal in the industry in ages.

As of this Tuesday, Porsche is officially off the hook in this matter. The carmaker announced it was issued a fine in connection with this investigation, and will not contest it. That should, in essence, conclude the procedure against Porsche.

The fine amounts to a total of €535 million, and comprises €4 million for negligent breach of duty and €531 million levy of economic benefits.

According to the results of the investigation, the German carmaker failed to perform its supervisory duties going back as far as 2009, “in a department of the division for development several levels below the executive board.” That essentially means the top brass will not be dragged into this.

Although the prosecutors do not place the Dieselgate scandal on the failure of some people to check what other people were doing, they do say this lack of supervision was “contributory to partial deviations of Porsche vehicles from regulatory requirements.”

Despite its decision not to contest the fine, the carmaker still tried to shift the blame elsewhere in the statement released today, stating that it “has never developed and produced diesel engines” and reminded everyone of its “complete withdrawal from diesel.”

Nearly four years after it broke, the Dieselgate scandal is still not over. Last year, German prosecutors slapped a €1 billion fine on Volkswagen, the maximum penalty, for the same failure to perform monitoring duties.