The “VW Bug” takes on new meaning.
The recordings captured VW officials discussing ways to end a business relationship with Prevent, a Bosnian parts supplier. The two companies agreed in August 2016 to end a six-day standoff over components deliveries, but the legal fallout continues to drag on with lawsuits pending in Germany and the U.S.
Business Insider cited excerpts of audio recordings from about 35 confidential meetings between January 2017 and February 2018 during which VW employees discussed the company’s strained business ties with Prevent.
The recordings were made by a male VW employee and included a meeting with a Prevent representative in April 2017, according to the report, which didn’t identify the employee.
See — https://europe.autonews.com/automakers/vw-asks-germany-investigate-internal-audio-leak
Confidential meetings of the VW group were apparently systematically intercepted during years of disputes between Volkswagen and the supplier ASA Prevent Group. This is reported by the business magazine “Business Insider”. As a result, conversations from a special project group were secretly recorded in 2017 and 2018. How the almost 50 hours of material were created and used has so far remained unclear. The Prevent group told Business Insider that they had no knowledge of the audio recordings, VW announced an investigation. “When internal and confidential meetings are illegally documented and such information is released to the public without authorization, we are deeply shocked,” said a spokesman.
A dispute between Volkswagen and the Prevent Group escalated over three years ago, and two of the supplier’s subsidiaries stopped the delivery of seat covers and transmission parts, paralyzing parts of the production for days. According to “Business Insider”, the group was working behind the scenes at the time on a strategy for a separation from prevent. “The internal project team at that time had the task of averting further damage to the company, its customers, employees and suppliers. There was an open discussion about all possible solutions,” said a VW spokesman.
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.
“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.
Wolfsburg (dpa) – In the eavesdropping affair about recorded conversations by a VW internal working group, the alleged mole at Volkswagen has been exposed. An employee of the group was released on Friday, according to information from the news agency dpa-AFX.
The online business magazine “Business Insider” had previously reported on this.
A VW spokesman did not want to comment on the information on request. As long as prosecution investigations continued, the group did not comment on the matter, said Volkswagen Brand Finance Director Alexander Seitz on Friday. The company had filed a criminal complaint against unknown after the process was initially investigated internally.
Last weekend it became known that a stranger had systematically recorded conversations of a working group in 2017 and 2018. The working groups focused on how to deal with the unpleasant supplier group Prevent, with which VW has been in a clinch for years. Before VW terminated all contracts with Prevent in March 2018, the company apparently consulted for a long time after several delivery stops whether and how Prevent should be phased out as a supplier, as the industry jargon states. Business Insider spoke of around 50 hours of audio material from at least 35 recordings.