Volkswagen denies report about CEO ouster

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Volkswagen denied a media report that said Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn was to be replaced amid an emissions scandal that has rocked the company.

"Nonsense," a spokesman at the company's headquarters in Wolfsburg said on Tuesday when asked whether the report by German Tagesspiegel was true.

Europe's biggest automaker could face penalties of up to $18 billion in the United States, as well as class-action lawsuits from buyers and damage to its reputation, with U.S. regulators alleging it misled them for more than a year.

(Reporting by Andreas Cremer; Writing by Kirsti Knolle; Editing by Maria Sheahan)