Oct. 19, 2015—Martin Winterkorn has stepped down from running Porsche Automobil Holding SE, VW’s biggest shareholder, in the wake of the investigation into VW’s cheating on emissions tests, according to a report by Bloomberg.
Winterkorn also resigned as VW CEO in September.
The Porsche-Piech family, which owns over half of VW’s voting shares, was initially willing to stick with Winterkorn but labor leaders and the German state of Lower Saxony pushed for Winterkorn to leave in order for VW to have a fresh start. These groups have significant influence over the automaker because Lower Saxony owns 20 percent of the voting stock and labor officials hold half the seats on VW’s supervisory board, according to Bloomberg.
Hans Dieter Poetsch, VW chairman, will take over for Winterkorn on Nov. 1, the company said in a statement on Saturday.
