German engineering giant Siemens says it has uncovered hundreds of millions of euro in suspicious payments as part of a continuing investigation into an alleged bribery and embezzlement scandal.
Internal company audits had found up to €420m in unexplained payments over the past seven years, finance chief Joe Kaeser said. But not all of the money necessarily went into the alleged slush funds. They were non-taxable consultancy payments that were simply being regarded as suspicious at the moment and would be investigated further, Kaeser said.
So far, prosecutors have said that around €200m of company money may have been siphoned off into overseas funds as possible bribes for contracts.
The Munich prosecutor's office said Thomas Ganswindt, former chief executive of Siemens' information and communications unit, had been placed in temporary detention. Ganswindt ran the fixed telephone division of Siemens from 2001 until 2004, when he joined the board and was responsible for supervising telecommunications activities.
He left Siemens in late September to become head of the Elster Group, which manufactures meters for the gas, water and electricity industries.
Late on Monday, Siemens announced it was restating its full-year earnings to take into account additional tax charges connected with the slush fund probe. Last month, public prosecutors in Munich raided the offices and homes of a number of Siemens employees in a massive probe into suspicions of embezzlement, bribery and tax evasion.
A number of arrest warrants were issued against a total of seven current and former employees, two of whom have since been released.
