&gt; They are profit machines and are required by law to be that way.<p>People say this all the time, but it&#x27;s not true. In the US managers at public companies do have an obligation to act in the best interest of the shareholders, but no court has ever said that means maximizing profit. On the contrary, managers had very broad rights to run a company as they see fit. In fact public companies forgo short-term profit all the time in favor of long-term goals such as improving their reputation with customers, politicians or regulators. Shareholders don&#x27;t get any say in business decisions such as how to handle emissions regulations.<p>There are some exceptions. You can&#x27;t explicitly screw over the shareholders, such as by selling the company for cheap in a deal that guarantees big bonuses for management. That doesn&#x27;t apply here. Craigslist got in trouble and the details of the case are kind of interesting, but it was an extreme and unusual case that also doesn&#x27;t apply to VW.<p>I&#x27;d assume the rules are similar in Germany. It wouldn&#x27;t make sense to have a rule that corporations must maximize short-term profit all the time. No one could run a big business that way.