Prosecutors said to be considering whether company, which agreed to a multibillion-dollar settlement this summer, should face criminal charges

The US justice department is reported to have found evidence of Volkswagen acting criminally in connection with the emissions cheating scandal that plunged the German company into crisis.



Federal prosecutors are weighing up whether to criminally charge VW and its employees or accept a multibillion-dollar settlement, according to the Wall Street Journal. The justice department and VW declined to comment on the discussions, which are said to have a soft deadline of Christmas 2016.

Volkswagen emissions scandal: $15bn settlement gets preliminary approval Read more

VW has admitted to deliberately cheating on US diesel emissions tests for several years and this summer agreed to pay $15.3bn (£11.8bn) to its customers and regulators.



However, the settlement did not preclude criminal charges, and at the time, deputy attorney general Sally Yates sought to reassure consumers that “our criminal investigation remains active and ongoing”.

“We will follow the facts wherever they go and we will determine whether to bring criminal charges against any companies or individual wrongdoers.”



It is unusual for US authorities to seek a criminal prosecution of companies or executives, with prosecutors tending to accept an admittance of guilt, an apology from the chief executive and multimillion-dollar fines.



In 2014, Toyota paid $1.2bn to settle a criminal investigation into its attempt to mislead the public about a defect that caused unintended acceleration. Last year, General Motors paid $900m to end an investigation into an ignition switch defect, which cut engines and disabled systems such as power steering and airbags, linked to 124 deaths.

Both companies agreed to the appointment of an independent monitor to oversee their safety practices for three years. A similar agreement is likely if prosecutors agree a settlement with VW.

Three US states have launched lawsuits alleging that VW executives knew the company’s cars had been engineered to cheat US pollution tests and had concluded that “breaking the law and risking the imposition of fines was an acceptable cost of doing business”.



New York, Massachusetts and Maryland filed lawsuits last month alleging that former VW chief executive Martin Winterkorn and other top executives were involved in a campaign of “systematic cheating and deception” to mislead US regulators over the emissions of its diesel cars.

An 84-page lawsuit filed by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman alleged that VW had been adapting technology to make its cars’ emissions appear loweras far back as 1999. The company went on to develop bespoke software, termed a “defeat device”, that allowed its cars to produce up to 40 times as much pollution on the roads than under strict US emissions test conditions.

The June settlement required VW to offer to buy back the 475,000 2.0-litre diesel cars it installed with illegal “defeat device” software designed to trick regulators into believing that its cars were greener than they really were. The buyback is expected to cost VW $10bn. The cost could increase significantly if VW is also ordered to buy back 85,000 3.0-litre Audis, Porsches and SUVs sold since 2009.

It was also ordered to spend $2bn on the construction of infrastructure to charge electric vehicles and develop zero-emission ride-sharing across the country. A further $2.7bn will be spent on helping the state replace old buses.