The German-based car company Daimler and three of its subsidiaries have been accused of paying bribes to a large number of foreign governments.
German car maker Daimler AG has been charged with bribing foreign officials with millions of pounds and gifts of luxury cars to win business deals.
The US Justice Department has accused the company of paying tens of millions of dollars in bribes to officials of at least 22 governments.
(Funny thing is: no where did I find the whole list of 22 countries, but I’m willing to bet that Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States would be found on that list. And I wouldn’t doubt that the gal who decided whether I got political asylum in Australia ended up driving a new car.)
The SEC probe began in 2004 when an auditor complained he was fired for protesting about secret bank accounts used to pay foreign officials.
A source close to Daimler, which has been led by chief executive Dieter Zetsche since 2006, that it is preparing to pay a fine of $185m (£121m) to the US Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Gee, what I get from this is that the US government ended up receiving a lot of money as a result of these crimes.)
Siemens agreed in December to pay $1.3bn to end corruption probes in the United States and Germany.
(Again, this is where throwing money at corruption probes will make the problems go away. If they where giving away money, why would giving away more money make a wrong a right? Shouldn’t the crimes result in moratorium or termination of being able to practice business in those counties be a more appropriate penalty for such criminal activity? But no, we say just pay us some more money and we will sweep this under the rug.
For more info, that is if these two links will even give you any more.
Check out:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8584158.stm
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