Jeep News

In August, German prosecutors mounted a raid of Porsche’s offices, looking into what the company’s last CEO, Wendelin Wiedeking, and his financial chief, may have done to manipulate the markets and violate securities laws. Now Porsche has confirmed further raids have been conducted on apartments belonging to a sub-management level employee.

Porsche did not reveal the identity of the employee. “The investigators found what they were looking for,” an unnamed source told Automotive News.

When Porsche’s Stuttgart headquarters were raided on August 20, Prosecutors seized documents ‘relevant to the inquiry.’ Those documents led directly to the most recent round of searches.

Porsche has previously rejected allegations of wrongdoing, but is cooperating fully with the prosecutor’s office, which was led to the matter by a complaint for German regulatory body BaFin, roughly equivalent to the U.S.’s Securities and Exchange Commission in some of its functions. The main violations being investigated are alleged market manipulation and insider information leaks.

What it means for the carmaker still isn’t clear, though day-to-day operations are unlikely to be affected. The investigation is centered around the actions of former CEO Wiedeking and former Chief Financial Officer Holger Haerter.

Problems could still arise, however, as wrongdoing in relation to the value of Porsche shares could come back to hurt new investor Volkswagen, which recently acquired a 42% stake in the luxury sports car maker.



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