It was one of the fastest civil settlements in the history of corporate malfeasance, coming together in six months instead of the years usually required for such complex negotiations. But the path to Volkswagen’s $15 billion deal last month with American officials and car owners over the company’s diesel deception was fraught with pitfalls, including clashing egos and cultures, arguments over mathematical formulas and frayed nerves from late nights and lost weekends.
The negotiations, which began in January, threatened to unravel in March. Fixing half a million cars to comply with clean air rules looked increasingly impossible. And Volkswagen was balking at any plan to buy back and scrap every car, which the company said it believed would be exorbitantly expensive.
Looking to negotiate the differences, a group of Volkswagen executives and lawyers, led by Francisco Javier Garcia Sanz, a VW board member, headed to Washington to meet with officials at the Justice Department, according to three people briefed on the discussions. The company proposed fixing the cars as best it could, while reducing emissions in other ways, like installing cleaner engines in government trucks, buses and tugboats
