Volkswagen pleaded guilty in emissions scandal, could pay $ 25B

Volkswagen AG pleaded guilty Friday to a US District Court in Detroit on three counts for the carmaker's role in the diesel scandal that broke out for the first time in September 2015, reports Reuters. As part of the plea, VW agreed to have an independent auditor oversee US operations for as long as three years. Advocacy, in which VW admitted obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit fraud, follows the agreement by Europe's largest constructor in January to pay $ 4.3 billion in criminal and civil fines.

Advocacy stems from VW's decision to install its diesel vehicles with software that programs cars to emit artificially low amounts of pollutants when they are being tested. VW installed the software in as many as 580,000 diesel-powered vehicles for a period of six years in the United States alone. The company has since agreed to buy up to half a million of these vehicles.

In all, Volkswagen will pay up to $ 25 billion in the United States only as a result of the scandal. The automaker has put a stop-sale on its diesel vehicles in the US by the end of 2015 and has no plan to resume. The US Department of Justice also accused seven current or former VW executives of crimes for their roles in the scandal, including the one in detention. Oliver Schmidt, who headed the US regulatory compliance department of VW, was arrested in January. In addition, James Robert Liang, engineer of Volkswagen, pleaded guilty last September. He could be sentenced to five years in prison and fined $ 250,000.