All bets are off when we're talking about blatant violations of the law. Who's to say that "transparency" is even really transparent? What good are stricter controls when the people who are in charge of creating and enforcing them are the same people who are violating them?

My point is that this could happen with any company and is part of the risk of investing, but to imply that the shareholders should have just "demanded companies to uphold legal and moral obligations" is assigning more stupidity on the shareholders than deserved.

It usually goes without saying that shareholders expect the companies they're investing in to obey the law and not lie to them.

Like I said, this is part of the risk of investing. There's always a chance the company you are investing in is cooking their books, lying, etc..., but the risk exists with any company and there's not much you can really do to mitigate it.

Are you seriously suggesting that everyone who has a retirement plan that holds an index fund that has VW in it should be held accountable?