Karlsruhe/Hamburg (Reuters) - In the legal dispute over the remuneration of works council members, four former Volkswagen personnel managers will have to stand trial again.

On Tuesday, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the acquittals of the defendants and referred the case to another commercial criminal chamber of the Regional Court of Braunschweig for retrial. At the center of the proceedings was former works council chairman Bernd Osterloh, who earned almost 750,000 euros in a peak year. Osterloh was not charged in the trial before the regional court, he was heard as a witness.

In September 2021, the Braunschweig court found that works council members who had been released from their duties had been overpaid. However, the judges argued that the defendants had not acted intentionally and acquitted the managers. The BGH has now made it clear that the findings made by the court in this regard do not meet the legal requirements. It was also not yet clear whether the regional court had rightly denied that the defendants had acted with intent. Furthermore, it is not clear from the judgment according to which system the remuneration of Volkswagen employees was generally based.

Following the ruling by the supreme court, the works council is increasingly pressing for a reform of the Works Constitution Act. After 50 years of stagnation, the legislator is urgently needed. "The remuneration of long-standing works council members in particular is now an issue for co-determination throughout Germany," emphasized a works council spokesperson. It is no longer just about Volkswagen, but about the future of the professional work of thousands of employee representatives in this country.

Volkswagen announced that it would examine the BGH ruling. Insofar as it contains statements on the benchmark for works council remuneration, the company will be guided by these and take them into account.

The public prosecutor's office appealed against the Braunschweig ruling to the Federal Court of Justice. The investigators accuse two former VW board members and two HR managers of having paid excessive salaries and bonuses to five works council members, including former Group Works Council Chairman Osterloh, between 2011 and 2016. The car manufacturer is said to have suffered losses of 4.5 million euros as a result. Osterloh had denied any influence on his own pay.

During his time as head of the Works Council, Osterloh saw himself as a "co-manager", without whom it was almost impossible to make important decisions at Volkswagen. In April 2021, he stepped down from the post after 16 years to become Chief Human Resources Officer of the VW subsidiary Traton.

(Report by Jan C. Schwartz and Ursula Knapp, edited by Hans Seidenstücker. If you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)