Nader Calls on Attorney General to Bring Full Weight of Criminal Law Against VW and Takata

Ralph Nader is calling on the Justice Department to bring the full weight of the criminal law against Volkswagen and Takata.

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In a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Nader wrote that “to bring justice to the victims of the Takata and VW criminal actions, I ask that you not just fine the companies and agree to deferred prosecution agreements, or a guilty plea against some subsidiary of the company – but bring the full weight of the criminal law – against both the parent company and responsible executives.”

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“The recent trend of settling major corporate crime cases with deferred or non prosecution agreements has undermined the criminal justice system and sent a message that we live in a society with a two tier system of justice – deferred and non prosecutions for the powerful, guilty pleas and jail for the powerless,” Nader wrote.

News outlets are reporting that the Justice Department is about to settle the criminal case with Takata airbag defect case for nearly $1 billion and the Volkswagen emissions cheating case for nearly $2 billion.

On the VW case, the New York Times reported that “the company or one of its corporate entities is expected to plead guilty to criminal charges as part of the deal.”

On the Takata case, the New York Times reported that “one point that remains unresolved is whether there will be any guilty plea to criminal misconduct, either by the company or one of its subsidiaries.”

Nader said that “whoever it was that leaked to the New York Times that ‘one point that remains unresolved [in the Takata case] is whether there will be any guilty plea to criminal misconduct, either by the company or one of its subsidiaries’ was testing the public’s sentiment on this issue.”

“Whatever your next stop in the legal field – be it corporate law firm, Wall Street, academia, or public interest group – rest assured your judgment in these cases will go a long way to help define your legal legacy as Attorney General,” Nader wrote.

 

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