Siemens CEO knew about corruption since January

Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive of Germany’s Siemens, which is being investigated for alleged corruption, said he learnt about a suspect bank account in Switzerland in January, the Financial Times reported on Saturday.

A Siemens spokesman confirmed the bulk of the FT report, which was based on an interview with the Siemens chief.

But spokesman Peik von Bestenbostel said Kleinfeld had found out about the account through an investigation by Swiss authorities, and not through the German company’s own investigations — as the FT had quoted Kleinfeld as saying.

Prosecutors raided Siemens offices last month, and the FT quoted Kleinfeld as saying that before the prosecutors’ investigations, he did not know of the scale of the various alleged bribery schemes.

Suspicions of fraud at Siemens hardened on Friday, Munich state prosecutors said, after the first stage of an investigation.

Munich prosecutors are investigating whether 200 million euros of Siemens’ money was transferred into foreign accounts for use as bribes. Siemens itself is examining 420 million euros of payments that were booked as consultant fees over the last seven years.

The Financial Times also said that Kleinfeld was adamant that a deal with Finland’s Nokia (NYSE: NOK) will go ahead — almost certainly without any financial penalties for Siemens.

Earlier this month, both firms had said the investigation into Siemens would delay the start of operations of the Siemens joint telecoms venture with Nokia.

Nokia and Siemens said in a joint statement that Nokia Siemens Networks would now start operations in the first quarter of 2007, not in January as previously expected.

Source: Reuters

Oh … snap! I wonder how many employees are going to get pink slips after this merger. All the nasty stuff seems to be happening at the corporate level however, most of the people I’m interested in are the Siemens engineers. Does Siemens have a R&D group?