VW Leaders Charged, Daimler Fined in Diesel-Scandal Reckoning

Germany’s embattled car industry suffered a one-two blow after prosecutors charged Volkswagen AG’s two top executives with market manipulation in the four-year-old diesel scandal and Daimler AG was fined in a separate probe for rigging vehicles.

The charge against VW’s leaders was brought by prosecutors in Braunschweig, near the company’s Wolfsburg headquarters, alleging that Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess, Chairman Hans Dieter Poetsch and former CEO Martin Winterkorn were too slow to inform investors about their diesel findings.

Within hours, a separate decision by Stuttgart prosecutors fined Daimler 870 million euros ($957 million) in a probe into their ...