Siemens compliance officers knew of bribes: witness
Written on May 29, 2008
Compliance officers at German engineering giant Siemens (SIEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and auditors at KPMG turned a blind eye to a system of slush funds used to pay bribes to win orders, a court witness said on Wednesday.
Heinz Keil von Jagemann, a former Siemens manager who admits carrying large sums in cash out of the country, said compliance officers had approached those responsible for the slush fund system after Austrian banks became suspicious.
Many of the suspect transfers made on Siemens’s behalf out of Germany traveled through neighboring Austria first.
Jagemann, called as a witness on the second day of what promises to be a mammoth trial in Munich, said the two compliance officers, who still work at Siemens, had told the perpetrators: “Think of another way.”
The scandal involving at least 1.3 billion euros ($2 billion) in suspect payments, according to Siemens’s own estimate, has also sparked investigations by the U.S paydayloans creditscore. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Such probes could lead to Siemens being banned from bidding for certain contracts in the United States and elsewhere.
Jagemann, a former Siemens manager who is one of about 300 suspects under investigation by Munich prosecutors, said he personally had carried large amounts of cash and money-transfer documents to Austria in heavy pilot’s cases.
“Once, I nearly did my back an injury,” he told the Munich Higher Regional Court.
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