VW UK boss questioned by MPs on emissions scandal – live
Transport secretary McLoughlin to be quizzed over government response
4.17pm BST
Ahead of the hearings, here’s our piece earlier from Archie Bland looking at various past corporate crises, from Enron to Northern Rock, and their effect on employees:
Related: ‘They may be fighting like rats in a sack’ – how to survive a VW-style corporate crisis
4.05pm BST
Paul Willis, the UK managing director of Volkswagen, has been with the company since 2000.
A Northern Irishman, he took up his present role in February 2014, replacing Paul Willcox who left to rejoin Nissan.
3.49pm BST
Another blow to VW, with Standard & Poor’s cutting the company’s credit rating from A to A- with a negative outlook. Under the circumstances it’s not exactly a shock move. S&P said:
We believe VW’s internal controls have been shown to be inadequate in preventing or identifying alleged illegal behavior in the US and misconduct in other regions.
We believe that VW’s breach of U.S. environmental law and potential other laws outside the US represents a significant reputational and financial risk to VW over the medium term.
3.41pm BST
Meanwhile the fallout from the scandal has continued to spread.
The European Investment Bank plans to look at whether any of the European Union loans that VW received were used to rig emissions tests. If so, it could demand the money back.
3.35pm BST
The hearing will be on Parliament television, and can be viewed here.
3.10pm BST
Good afternoon, and welcome to the next stage in the Volkswagen emissions scandal, as the car company’s UK boss and the UK transport secretary separately face MPs to be quizzed about the situation.
As a reminder, the German company has admitted that 11m of its vehicles around the world were fitted with software which cheated emissions tests. The discovery of these “defeat devices” was made by US environmental regulators. It means the cars passed the tests by having their engines switched to a cleaner mode, but once on the road they churned out nitrogen oxide pollutants well above the legal limit.
Source: Guardian Transport
<a href="VW UK boss questioned by MPs on emissions scandal – live” target=”_blank”>VW UK boss questioned by MPs on emissions scandal – live