Volkswagen Act Essay

On September 18th 2015, accusations began being made about the actual emission levels of some of Volkswagens cars. These accusations came from John German, a man who describes himself as “a simple engineer from Michigan” who has a passion for the environment. John German is involved with the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), a not-for-profit organization whose goal is to reduce the toxic emissions from vehicles. As soon as the story broke that Volkswagen had secretly been undermining the Clean Air Act, there was a public outcry. The outcry against Volkswagen was very evident in their stocks. On September 17th Volkswagen stock was one hundred sixty-eight dollars, 5 days later on September 22nd the stocks had dropped a whopping

On July 21 1960, the German Parliament instituted The Volkswagen Act. This act stated that sixty percent of the company’s stock shares would be kept as People’s Shares, and that twenty percent of the companies’ stocks would be kept for the federal government. The government wanted to secure twenty percent of the stocks in order to make sure that the German government had influence in the company’s decisions. By 1961, Volkswagen shares officially hit the open market. For the first time in the history of the company, anyone was able to buy stock in the company. Volkswagen continued to steadily expand, slowly gaining popularity in nations outside of Europe. In 1985, the company made the decision to change their name from Volkswagenwerk to Volkswagen. They felt Volkswagen would sound more appealing to nations outside of Europe. By 1985 the company had already expanded to DM 1.5 billion. This was excellent news for Volkswagen because they had originally started at a DM of 150 million just twenty years prior. The automotive industry was booming, and it only seemed to be getting better. In 1988 the German government opted to get rid of five million shares with the condition that the shares would be broadly distributed and not just obsorbed by the