Скачать с ютуб GERMANY: JOSE IGNACIO LOPEZ RESIGNS FROM VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE в хорошем качестве

GERMANY: JOSE IGNACIO LOPEZ RESIGNS FROM VOLKSWAGEN UPDATE

(29 Nov 1996) German/Nat After a three-year legal fight, Jose Ignacio Lopez, the top Volkswagen executive accused of stealing secrets from General Motors, has quit. But Europe's largest car maker continues to maintain Lopez is innocent of allegations that he stole industrial secrets from his former employer General Motors Corp or its German subsidiary Adam Opel AG. There's widespread speculation of an out-of-court settlement in the dispute, which might otherwise cost V-W billions of dollars. Volkswagen's top brass assembled at its headquarters in Wolfsburg, near Hanover for a meeting to discuss its top executive, Jose Ignacio Lopez. Lopez has been at the centre of a dispute between VW and his former employers- General Motors over allegations of industrial espionage. The production chief had built a reputation as a tough cost-cutter as General Motors' purchasing chief when he defected to VW in 1993, taking along several other managers. Almost immediately, General Motors accused him of illegally taking along industrial secrets, too. G-M filed a lawsuit in the United States in March seeking unspecified damages from VW. On Friday, Volkswagen's supervisory board accepted Lopez's resignation, though the company will continue paying him until his contract ends in March 1998. SOUNDBITE: (German) "The VW supervisory board in today's meeting accepted Lopez's desire to end his contract effective today, November 29 1996." SUPERCAPTION: Klaus Liesen, VW Board Member Volkswagen has always maintained that Lopez is innocent. SOUNDBITE: (German) "The fact remains unchanged, despite thorough investigations by expert teams, there is no reason to believe that VW used or took industrial secrets from Opel, (General Motors)." SUPERCAPTION: Klaus Liesen, VW Board Member GM's German subsidiary, Adam Opel AG, said the removal of Lopez from the management board was not enough . In a statement, Opel called the resignation a "desperate response" to General Motors' U-S court case over the accusations of industrial espionage. Opel has said a settlement was possible only if VW acknowledges wrongdoing, offers a public apology, pays for damages and dismisses Lopez and the seven other managers who defected with him. But Volkswagen said the door is still open for talks to finally clear up the dispute with GM. SOUNDBITE: (German) "It's been well known for a long time that we've been ready to enter discussions with General Motors to clear up the relationship, if these talks can go ahead without pre- conditions. That was true before, and it's true now that Mr Lopez has left the board." SUPERCAPTION: Klaus Liesen, VW Board Member When Lopez came to Volkswagen in 1993, the company was losing 1.6 billion marks (1.045 billion U-S dollars at the current exchange rate). His cost-cutting methods and efforts to improve productivity have contributed to Volkswagen making a profit of 465 million marks (dlrs 303 million) in the first nine months of this year. Workers at the Wolfsburg plant had a mixed reaction to the news of Lopez's resignation. SOUNDBITE: (German) "He should have gone quietly with honour, this has been going on a while. It is sad that it has dragged on for so long." SUPERCAPTION: Voxpop SOUNDBITE: (German) "As long as it wasn't here, I thought he should stay. Not everything he did was wrong." SUPERCAPTION: Voxpop SOUNDBITE: (German) SUPERCAPTION: Voxpop Lopez, a 55-year-old Spaniard, plans to start a consulting firm in Germany and VW said it had not ruled out hiring him. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...