Remember the ADAC scandal involving manipulated votes for the organization’s flagship “Gelber Engel” (Yellow Angel) awards? Well, it’s not over yet, as German automakers Daimler, Volkswagen and BMW said they will return awards from ADAC after an audit discovered the results of the coveted award were rigged.
After allegations emerged last month that ADAC had massively inflated readership votes, Deloitte performed an audit that discovered the irregularities of the award procedures. Following the release of the results on February 11, ADAC president Peter Meyer announced his immediate resignation.
Deloitte said only 3,271 votes had been cast in favor of the VW Golf, while ADAC claimed 34,299 motorists had endorsed the vehicle for the award that goes to the most popular car in Germany. Deloitte said it found evidence of “willful manipulation” as well as technologically flawed processing of data.
Consequently, Volkswagen said it would return the award, while Daimler said it would return all the Yellow Angels it had been achieved in previous years.
“Awards by the public are of great importance to Daimler, since these reflect the public opinion. A prerequisite for this is that readership votes are conducted in a correct manner. This was not the case with the Yellow Angel,” Daimler said in a statement.
ADAC said Deloitte would examine the voting in the years 2005 until 2013 because it had found similarities in how the prize had been awarded in those years.
By Dan Mihalascu
Story References: Reuters
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