Last week, Matthias Mueller, who took over as chief executive as the crisis erupted, outlined a new focus on electric vehicles and self-driving cars for, as VW seeks to get back on track after the scandal.  The claim, filed by Quinn Emanuel against VW, centres around investors not being told about the problems when the company was first aware of them. Such knowledge, it claims, would have meant they were unlikely to have invested in VW.  Nadine Herrmann, the lawyer who is leading the case at Quinn Emanuel, said: "Our clients are serious investors who care deeply about good corporate governance and functioning capital markets. If there ever was a corporate scandal where courts must vindicate the information rights of capital market investors, it is this one.”  One investor being represented by Quinn Emanuel - which has won almost $50bn (£32bn) for clients in the past and represented Google, Sony and Fifa - is CalSTRS, the giant pension scheme for Californian teachers, which has funds of almost $190bn.  Brian Bartow, CalSTRS general counsel, said VW had engaged in “widespread deliberate deceit” and must be held to account.  “We have serious concerns about VW’s internal controls, governance and oversight by the board,” he added. “This claim seeks to recover not only our economic losses, but, ultimately, to implement much needed corporate governance reforms at VW.”  VW’s management are expected to face tough questions at the annual meeting on Wednesday. Investor groups are urging shareholders to reject a vote of confidence in management. Asset manager Hermes is calling for a special audit to investigate whether directors properly scrutinised executives’ actions.  There will also be calls for the company to reveal findings from law firm Jones Day’s investigation of the scandal. VW has delayed giving details of the probe, saying doing so could discourage people from being open with lawyers trying to discover the causes behind the use of defeat devices.  Pressure on the company grew yesterday when it emerged that German prosecutors are investigating Martin Winterkorn, the former chief executive who quit five days after the scandal broke. The probe is into whether he was involved in market manipulation by not making public VW’s deceit earlier, with allegations that he had known about it for some time. When he quit he said he was “unaware of any wrongdoing on his part”.  VW was unavailable for comment.
Volkswagen is facing a multi-billion legal claim from investors who lost out when the company’s shares collapsed because of its “widespread deliberate deceit” over the emissions scandal.