MONEYTALK: Update Aug 4th 2008 SEC, $2 bn bribes to secure Siemens orders

by SOLARLIFE | August 1, 2008 at 11:15 am

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Update Aug 4th 2008
New York stock exchange

SEC visits Siemens (electronics) in Germany for corruption case. SEC may fine Siemens with $1.5 bn, for not respecting listed NY stock market rulings

Siemens has acknowledged dubious payments of up to $2 billion in the wider corruption case uncovered last year.The company, which makes everything from wind turbines to trams, agreed in October to pay a $317 million fine to end some legal proceedings in Germany related to the scandal. Reinhard Siekaczek was convicted as responsable corruption manager handling his "business meetings from a countryside beerhouse.
The Siemens management is still under investigation, even from the proper own company. Over years competition of smaller companies was stopped, no innovation necessary. The company made it's profit by speculating on the stock market with the
old boys network Wittelsbacher place, called the Elephant cemetary.

Prosecutors said Siekaczek set up a complex network of shell corporations to siphon off company money over several years. They said the money was used as bribes to help secure contracts abroad by paying off would-be suppliers, government officials and potential customers.

Siekaczek testified that his superiors had told him to create a new payment system after paying bribes abroad became a criminal offense in Germany in the late 1990s. He said judicial authorities had already been looking into similar accounts set up in Austria.

"Naturally it was known to me and everyone that we pay commissions to secure orders," he testified, adding that they had been handled "very discreetly" within a small circle of people.