Sept 19 (Reuters) - An audit commissioned by Volkswagen

into its jointly owned site in Xinjiang, China,

failed to meet key aspects of the international standard the

German carmaker's auditor said it had set for the process, the

Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The FT, which obtained a full report of the audit that was

conducted last year, found interviews with workers which should

have been confidential were live-streamed to a law firm's

headquarters in Shenzhen, southern China, and only managers were

asked questions related to forced labour.

Investors demanded last year that the carmaker conduct an

independent audit of labour conditions at the site, jointly

owned by SAIC, in the Xinjiang region, where rights groups have

documented abuses including mass forced labour in detention

camps. Beijing denies any such abuses.

Volkswagen did not immediately respond to a request from

Reuters for comment. It told the FT that the SA8000 standard had

only been used by the auditors as a "basis" but that "full

examination of all points mentioned in the standard were

necessary".

The audit report, a summary of which was released late last

year, found no signs of forced labour, although the auditor

added that the challenges of data collection in China, including

in interviews, were widely known.

Volkswagen said at the time that the German human rights due

diligence firm it hired, Loening Human Rights & Responsible

Business GmbH, applied the SA8000 standard, a management systems

standard based on international human rights principles which

assesses eight areas including child labour, forced labour and

health and safety.

However, the FT found that neither Loening nor Chinese law

firm Liangma, also listed in the report as involved, were

accredited to carry out SA8000 audits, according to a list

compiled by Social Accountability International, the

standard-setting body.

The FT said Loening declined to comment, while Liangma and

the two lawyers involved in the audit did not reply.

The carmaker said in a press statement in December that

whilst it did not receive an official SA8000 certification,

"alternative ethical guidelines and management reviews ensured

that the standards were maintained."

Several senior Loening staff had distanced themselves from

the audit, and some VW investors reacted cautiously to the

results, urging the carmaker to run further checks on the plant.

The audit report was also obtained by Germany's Der Spiegel

and ZDF.