FRANKFURT, March 16 (Reuters) - German prosecutors searched the offices of Jones Day, the lawfirm tasked by Volkswagen with investigating its diesel emissions cheating scandal, a step which VW said was "unacceptable."
German paper Handelsblatt first reported that the prosecutor's office in Munich had ordered the search as part of its probe into VW's role handling a cover up of systematic emissions cheating.
"We see the actions of the Munich prosecutor as unacceptable in every way. In our opinion the search of a lawfirm mandated by a company contravenes the principles of the code of criminal procedure," Volkswagen spokesman Eric Felber said in a statement.
Volkswagen will take every legal step possible to counteract this, Felber said.
Jones Day and the Munich prosecutor's office were not immediately available for comment.
Jones Day was mandated by Volkswagen's (VW) supervisory board shortly after the emissions cheating broke in September 2015 to pilot a probe of the carmaker's manipulations.
Jones Day found wrongdoing by certain high-level VW employees but exonerated members of the management board. VW has never published the full findings of its Jones Day report, although a summary was handed to the United States Department of Justice. (Reporting by Edward Taylor; Additional reporting by Joern Poltz and Irene Preisinger; Editing by Christoph Steitz)