WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Volkswagen Group and its former CEO Martin Winterkorn over the automaker’s diesel-emissions scandal, accusing the company of perpetrating a “massive fraud” on U.S. investors.
The SEC said in its civil complaint filed in San Francisco on Thursday that from April 2014 to May 2015, VW issued more than $13 billion in bonds and asset-backed securities in U.S. markets at a time when senior executives knew that more than 500,000 U.S. diesel vehicles grossly exceeded legal vehicle emissions limits.
