BRASÍLIA (dpa-AFX) - Volkswagen do Brasil has walked away from the negotiating table in a hearing on possible slave labor at a subsidiary's Amazon farm in the 1970s and '80s, according to Brazilian prosecutors. The company said it had no interest in signing an agreement with the prosecuting authority responsible for labor law, according to a statement issued by the authority in Brasília on Wednesday (local time). Such an agreement is roughly equivalent to a pre-trial settlement in Germany.

The prosecutor's office deplored Volkswagen's attitude, which it said contradicted the company's commitment to the country and to human rights. It announced that it would take all judicial and extrajudicial measures necessary for effective reparation of the damages allegedly caused by the company.

"Volkswagen do Brasil rejects all the allegations contained in the protocols of this investigation on Fazenda Vale do Rio Cristalino and does not agree with the biased representations of facts by third parties," a spokesperson for Volkswagen do Brasil said in response to a question. The Brazilian prosecutor's office would not have informed the company until three years after the investigation began.

The Brazilian prosecutor's office had summoned VW do Brasil in May 2022. The June 2022 hearing was also about possible reparations for the workers at the farm and for Brazilian society. At issue was a very serious violation of human rights that took place over more than a decade with the direct involvement of Volkswagen, the prosecutor's statement said.

Prosecutor Rafael Garcia Rodrigues had spoken of inhospitable accommodations on the farm known as "Fazenda Volkswagen" in Santana do Araguaia in the state of Pará. In addition, the workers had not been able to leave the farm. According to the investigating prosecutors, the workers and Brazilian society itself deserved more respectful treatment and reparations for the damage caused.

The prosecutors' proposal included compensation for workers already identified as having been harmed, as well as a program to find other workers who were also treated in this way at the farm.

According to investigator Garcia Rodrigues, the "Fazenda Volkswagen" was one of the largest ventures in the rural Amazon, and the car company wanted to get into the meat business at the time. It was established in the 1970s and supported by the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985). The farm was about 1390 square kilometers and had about 300 workers. The contract workers responsible for the clearing, to whom the accusation of slave labor primarily refers, were not directly employed by the subsidiary.

Because the venture had been able to count on public funds and tax relief, according to the prosecutor's office, compensation from the Brazilian company is necessary./mfa/DP/zb