The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC from the Securities and Exchange Commission) is investigating its "Voltswagen" name Volkswagen to find out if the scam affected the car industry's share price and if a law was broken, according with Der Spiegel.
The announcement of the new name took place on March 29, when the American subsidiary of Volkswagen "accidentally" published a draft press release for the change of the name of the local company to Voltswagen for its promotion in electric vehicles.
Some newsgraphics agencies published the news and the company released an official press release on March 30, which included excerpts from Volkswagen CEO Scott Keogh who claimed the change would actually happen.
Eventually, as it turned out, it was an April Fool's joke and a lot of agencies news – including the Associated Press reproduced the story.
Volkswagen stock price rose as much as 12,5 percent at this stage, equivalent to billions of dollars in market value.
So the SEC wants to know what really happened, or what laws could have been violated by VW.