back to article Feds charge eight former Siemens officials with bribery

US officials have charged more than a dozen former executives and contractors of Siemens of conspiring to spend $100 million in bribes to secure a $1 billion contract to produce national identity cards for Argentine citizens. A criminal indictment filed on Tuesday against eight former officials of the German industrial giant …

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  1. proto-robbie
    Pirate

    This is the company...

    ... which is the sole supplier of laptops at over £1400 each to primary schools in Scotland. Not that I'd like to draw any particular inference from that of course.

    It'll be interesting to see if Uncle Sam can make a successful prosecution over crimes committed in Argentina by a German company, especially if they've coughed up $1.6 billion in fines and settlements already.

    Not that there appears to be much difference in morality between the $100M and the $1.6B if you ask me.

  2. William Boyle
    Thumb Down

    I really don't see how this could possibly be considered within the jurisdiction of the US Justice Department, unless of course the executives and contractors are either US citizens or were working for the US subsidiary of Siemens.

    1. mudskipper
      Holmes

      Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 -my simplification

      http://www.justice.gov/criminal/fraud/fcpa/

      or

      http://www.fcpa.us/

      Basically if you want to do business in USA your US operations can be prosecuted for doing corrupt things elsewhere. If don't like that then don't do business in US.

  3. Stuart 25
    Thumb Down

    Try cleaning your own house first.

    Good to see the Americans dealing with 'corrupt' foreigners. Of course I assume the fact that a US company didn't get the contract had nothing to do with the case.

    I might take their moralising more seriously when they start dealing with their own corruption. A country where laws and bogus enforcement can be bought by Corporations and even open bribery of politicians is excused as 'campaign contributions' by lobbyists.

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/thumb_down_32.png

    1. Ramazan
      Black Helicopters

      @Stuart 25

      I for one welcome USA prosecution if our domestic one turns blind eyes to crime and corruption.

      P.S. of course I'd like to see HP, IBM, Microsoft and others in court too.

  4. Neoc

    I must be missing something

    The government of the USA filed criminal charges against employees of a German company for alleged illegal dealings in Argentina.

    Unless the employees were specifically working for the US branch of Siemens, what the f*k does this have to do with the US legal system? Shouldn't this be raised either in Germany, Argentina or the ITF?

  5. Herby

    The $1.6 billion is just...

    ...a bribe in another form, payable to the US government. Will it reduce my (I'm a nice citizen) taxes by the requisite $5.33 (or so) spread over the 300 million people in our fine country? I doubt it, but somebody needs to get paid, it just won't be me (*SIGH*).

  6. Al fazed
    Megaphone

    Twats

    This is the company that just got favoured status in the UK to supply wind turbines, ones that are actually really shit at producing electricity.

    Oh yeah and they just got big financial handout from UK PLC for a new windo turbine fabrication plant on Humberside. It's gonna cost us (UK Tax payers) loads of wonga to provide a special harour and all the services for this Seimens fab plant.

    How the fuck do they do it ?

    Oh, yeah, sorry. Bloody obvious init.

    Did someone mention Stuxnet ? More like Fuckusnet !

    ALFAZED

    1. tmTM

      and

      The same company that will be making our trains, pushing a UK business to the wall.

      of course we have our past government to thank for that fiasco.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    and nobody noticed a director taking $10 million from the company accounts?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just curious....

    ... but when was the last time we saw the US Justice Dept go hell for leather after a US Company for bribery? BAE got stuffed, Siemens got stuffed... not seeing a lot of action on the Lockheed/Boing/McDonald Douglas etc front.

    Regardless of Siemens' actions, this is another disgraceful example of US Protectionism and hypocritical behaviour.

    1. kain preacher

      How many more examples do you want ? the DOJ will go after any company.

      Most of the companies that that get nailed for this is American companies ,

      http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2011/2011-146.htm

      http://www.law.com/jsp/cc/PubArticleCC.jsp?id=1202535253560&rss=cc

      http://mssparky.com/tag/fcpa-violations/

      http://www.insidecounsel.com/2011/10/28/sec-investigates-avon-for-fcpa-violations

      http://www.insidecounsel.com/2011/10/28/sec-investigates-avon-for-fcpa-violations

      http://www.mainjustice.com/justanticorruption/2011/08/31/oracle-reportedly-under-investigation-for-fcpa-violations/

  9. Nameless Faceless Computer User
    Devil

    No surprises here

    I used to work for that company. Yea, they are that bad. Their "business plan" for "next year" is to make more money than "last year." That plan made it into a Powerpoint side, meaning that someone actually spent time thinking that up.

  10. micheal
    Black Helicopters

    They'll have made that back

    From the clauses about cancelling the WES congestion charge area

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