Times Online – Hedge funds were heading for a full-blown row with the German Government last night as it emerged that funds sitting on tens of billions of euro losses after short-selling Volkswagen could go bankrupt.

Porsche, VW’s biggest shareholder, stands to pocket a quick €6billion (£4.7billion) profit from the short-selling.

The London-based Alternative Investment Management Association (Aima), the hedge fund trade body, said yesterday that it planned to ask the European Union to clamp down on a controversial German legal loophole that allowed Porsche secretly to take its VW stake to almost 75 per cent.

Andrew Baker, Aima deputy chief executive, said: “This sounds somewhat irregular. If you tried that in this country, there would be a number of questions to be answered.”

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