Investment Funds Sue Porsche over $1 Billion

Although former Porsche executives Wendelin Wiedeking and Holger Haerter have been somewhat cleared of the market manipulation accusations, a group of investment funds decided to pursue legal action against the two and Porsche, seeking to recover "over a billion dollars in losses suffered as Porsche SE attempted a takeover of Volkswagen AG in 2008."

The funds in question are saying Porsche and the two executives "repeatedly misled investors and lied about Porsche SE's positions and intentions with respect to VW in order to take control of VW while preventing the price of VW shares from rising to reflect their intentions."

"The defendants' actions enabled them to hide the extent to which Porsche SE had cornered the market in VW's freely traded shares and simultaneously induced the plaintiff funds to establish short positions on the same shares," the funds say in the complaint filed with a federal court in Manhattan.

The funds even cite a New York Times report, which said back in 2008, following the revealing of the extent of Porsche's true control over VW, that the move was a "short squeeze of historic proportions."

"The height of the short squeeze on Oct. 28, VW stock briefly topped 1,000 Euros, nearly five times as high as on Oct. 24, making VW the biggest company by stock-market value for a few hours," NY Times said at the time.

"Porsche SE should be held accountable in a court of law," Phil Beck, one of the funds' lawyers said. "We will do whatever it takes to make sure the rule of law is upheld."