A Munich court found two former Siemens executives guilty of breach of trust and abetting bribery on Tuesday, Reuters reported, in a corruption case reaching as far as Russia, Libya and Nigeria.
Michael Kutschenreuter, former financial head of the company's telecoms unit, was fined 160,000 euros ($220,000) by the court while a second defendant was fined 40,000 euros. They were sentenced to 2 years and 1 1/2 years of probation, respectively.
In 2007, 20 managers of regional telecommunications companies in Russia received bribes from Siemens executives worth 1.3 million euros, according to the Munich court ruling.
In 2009, Forbes magazine conducted its own investigation into the Siemens bribery scandal. Most of the officials identified in the court documents have denied taking bribes from Siemens but admitted to receiving presents from the company and traveling on Siemens expense accounts.
Although the verdict identifies the heads of the regional Russian telecoms soliciting the bribes, no investigations have been launched by Russian prosecutors.
The court also found that the company had given 10 million euros to government officials in Nigeria.
The bribery affair has cost the company more than 2.5 million euros in fines and back taxes. The company has admitted to paying 1.3 billion euros in dubious expenses from 2000 to 2006. There are more than 300 people involved in the case.
The verdict comes after German carmaker Daimler was fined by the U.S. Justice Department last month for paying more than $4 million to secure the sale of its cars to government agencies.
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