Meeting to smooth out leadership crisis at Volkswagen

The leaders of Volkswagen's supervisory board plan to meet soon to try to iron out an effective working relationship between chairman Ferdinand Piech and chief executive Martin Winterkorn amid a leadership crisis at the automaker, German newspaper Handelsblatt has reported.

Mr Piech, patriarch of the family that founded Volkswagen and a dominant figure at the automaker for more than two decades, triggered the leadership crisis at the Wolfsburg-based firm by criticising Mr Winterkorn in a magazine article this month.

However Mr Piech’s iron grip on the giant German carmaker has been weakened following a confrontation with senior board members last week that nearly resulted in a push to oust him, sources told Reuters. – (Reporting by Jonathan Gould)