FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German financial watchdog Bafin filed a complaint with prosecutors against the entire former board of Volkswagen (DE:VOWG_p) over possible market manipulation linked to the car maker's emissions scandal, a person familiar with the legal proceedings said on Tuesday.
German prosecutors in Braunschweig on Monday said they had launched a probe against only two of those board members - former VW Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn and another unnamed executive.
The prosecutors said they had "sufficient real signs" that Volkswagen's (VW) duty to disclose the possible financial damage of its manipulations may have arisen prior to Sept. 22, 2015 when the carmaker publicly admitted to its wrongdoings.
The person familiar with the legal proceedings told Reuters that Bafin saw the former board as having collective responsibility in the case and that prosecutors may widen the probe to include other executives.
Five sources told Reuters that the second executive under investigation by prosecutors was the head of the core VW brand, Herbert Diess.
Klaus Ziehe, a spokesman for the Braunschweig prosecutor's office, declined to say how many people were the subject of Bafin's complaint.
"The fact that we marked two people down as suspects does not necessarily mean that Bafin's complaint was focussed on these two people," Ziehe said, adding that it also could not be excluded that the investigation could be widened or narrowed.
"This is an ongoing procedure and the number of suspects is not cast in stone," he said.
At the time the scandal broke in 2015, the board included current Chief Executive Matthias Mueller, who was then in charge of the Porsche brand, and Hans Dieter Poetsch, who was VW's chief financial officer.
Bafin and Volkswagen declined to comment.