Volkswagen misses own deadline for diesel-cheating report, now expected by end of year

Ten days ago, a major milestone in the Volkswagen diesel cheating scandal was reached.

On Thursday, April 21, VW and the EPA agreed on the broad-stroke outlines of a plan to buy back or modify for 482,000 2.0-liter TDI diesel cars sold from 2009 through 2015.

Almost lost in the coverage of that news was the following day's deadline for VW to issue its internal report on how the scandal happened—and who was responsible.

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Volkswagen did not meet its own April 22 deadline to issue the report, prepared by the law firm of Jones Day after more than six months of investigation.

"Based on the current assessment," the company said in a statement, "Jones Day expects the investigation to conclude in the fourth quarter of 2016."

Therefore, VW continued, its supervisory board and management board have "had to recognize that a disclosure of interim results of the investigation at this point in time would present unacceptable risks for Volkswagen and, therefore, cannot take place now."

Volkswagen "regrets" this decision, the statement said, which was made together with Jones Day and the company's U.S. law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell. Each firm independently advised against release of the interim report.

The company also suggested that releasing the report on the announced date could interfere with both settlement negotiations in the U.S. and criminal probes into the scandal.

Thus far, the internal investigation has received 65 million electronic documents, VW said, with more than 10 million forwarded to the lawyers for their inspection and review.

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