“The firm has found documentation of misconduct with regard to domestic and foreign anti-corruption regulations in nearly every operating division it investigated and in numerous countries,” law firm Debevoise & Plimpton told the supervisory board of Siemens at its meeting in Munich.
Europe’s largest engineering company is examining claims for damages against board members, and a brief has reportedly already been sent to the firm’s compliance department. The board as a whole was reportedly also asked to examine the validity of claims against it, according to German news agency DPA.
Representatives of Debevoise & Plimpton reported on Tuesday on the status of an investigation into a scandal about whether employees paid kickbacks out of a slush fund in exchange for foreign contracts. The US firm surveyed the status of an investigation into former Siemens telecommunications branch Com and five other branches of the firm.
Misconduct involved not only direct incidents of corruption, the lawyers reported, but also numerous “violations of rules dealing with internal controls and the correctness of documentation,” according to DPA.