Independent Directors and Minority Investors

supervisory board: VW executives bent over backwards in Hanover to secure a vote of confidence in the board amid angry accusations from a number of investors saying the lack of independent directors on the supervisory board was likely to have stood in the way of a proper scrutiny of VW managers and their role in the scandal, according to Deutsche Welle. The crisis has led to calls from minority investors for greater openness in a business that is almost 90-percent controlled by its founding Porsche-Piech families, its home region of Lower Saxony and the Gulf state of Qatar. The Hanover get-together was also the first investor meeting since newly elected chief executive Matthias Müller outlined plans to turn Europe largest carmaker into a company moving away from diesel technology and towards e-mobility, autonomous vehicles and car-sharing schemes. Torrent of criticism During the annual general meeting , VW main shareholders easily defeated two motions aimed at replacing Hans Dieter Pötsch - VW chairman and head of the Porsche-Piech family holding company - as chair of the meeting. But smaller investors were not mollified. Pötsch, who is also a former VW finance chief, repeated an apology to investors for the emissions test cheating. "We sincerely regret that the diesel issue is casting a shadow on this great company," he told the meeting of about 3,000 shareholders in Hanover. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.