SEC Actually Will Investigate Volkswagen Over April Fools' Prank
We began April talking about Volkswagen’s April Fool’s Day prank that went awry, and we end the month back on the same topic. Circle of life!
We’re back on that topic because the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating what happened.
We reported, way back at the beginning of the month, that the SEC might investigate. And now, we know that it will.
The New York Times says Volkswagen did not deny reports from Der Spiegel and other German media outlets that it is under investigation by the SEC.
That’s because regulators tend to frown upon companies misleading stockholders, even if the company does so as part of an elaborate joke. As a reminder, Volkswagen initially told the press that the name change to Voltswagen was no prank and would really happen.
Apparently, German regulators aren’t going to bother with an investigation, despite similar rules in that country regarding honesty.
The paper of record also suggests that even if the SEC finds a violation, the penalty is unlikely to be severe, in part because shares continued to rise even after VW admitted it was all a prank done in the name of “fun”.
We don’t like to say we told you so…but we kinda told you so.
[Image: Volkswagen]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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The SEC is going to have to play a larger role in reining in the craziness. Rising and falling stocks have less to do with market fundamentals and more to do with who is trending on Twitter and Reddit. Musk has this figured out. Of course Voltswagen and the rest want to get in on the action. And of course it is (or becomes) stock manipulation. To the moon!!! The SEC is going to have to step up for the sake of the integrity of financial markets (if there ever was any). Not just in the auto sector.
Seeing as Jo Jo has accomplished everything on the agenda (steal an election, outrageously raise taxes, create a vaccine as a candidate, fall up a flight of stairs and then blame a slight breeze, etc), I can see how his SEC has time for this.
It makes me wonder if the Securities and Exchange Commission has anything better to do.
I see having a sense of humor is no longer in style these days.