German financial watchdog Bafin filed a complaint with prosecutors against the entire former board of Volkswagen over possible market manipulation linked to its emissions scandal.
This is according to a person familiar with the legal proceedings.
German prosecutors in Braunschweig said yesterday they had launched a probe against only two of those board members - former VW CEO Martin Winterkorn and another unnamed executive.
The prosecutors said they had "sufficient real signs" that VW's duty to disclose the possible financial damage of its manipulations may have arisen prior to September 22, 2015 when it 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.
Prosecutors may widen the probe to include other executives, the source added.
Five sources told Reuters that the second executive under investigation by prosecutors was the head of the core VW brand, Herbert Diess.
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 focused on these two people," the spokesman said.
He addded that it also could not bee xcluded 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 CEO Matthias Mueller, who was then in charge of the Porsche brand, and Hans Dieter Poetsch, who was VW's chief financial officer.
