Volkswagen bosses to be paid £49m despite record losses

Volkswagen is to pay a dozen current and former senior managers a total of about €63m (£49m, $71m) for 2015, despite reporting record annual losses following its emissions scandal.

The carmaker said it would withhold a portion of bonus payments for now, but could award them at a later date.

Last year VW admitted to cheating on diesel emissions tests, with net losses for 2015 reaching €5.5bn.

Chief executive Matthias Mueller apologised for the firm's actions.

At a press conference, he acknowledged that the carmaker "disappointed many people who trusted Volkswagen".

Mr Mueller has been promised a 2015 pay package of €4.76m, of which €880,000 has been postponed.

Meanwhile former chief executive Martin Winterkorn, who resigned in the wake of the scandal, agreed to delay 30% of his variable pay but will still collect a total of €7.3m.

Hans Dieter Posch will receive €5.2m for his previous work as chief finance officer, as well as fixed pay of €13.4m for his new role chairing Volkswagen's supervisory board.

Recall costs

The German company has set aside €16.2bn to pay costs associated with the scandal, almost half of which is devoted to buying back or repairing diesel cars that possess the emissions cheating software.

Volkswagen chief executive Matthias Mueller

Mr Mueller said that the recall process would be the company's "most important task until the very last vehicle has been put in order".

Earlier this week, Volkswagen said it was postponing a recall plan for tens of thousands of Passat models in Germany, while it waited for the repair process to be approved by regulators.

The company has previously failed to win approval for a recall of its Golf models, as it struggles to fix 8.5 million vehicles in Europe alone.