Six former managers of the Israel Electric Corporation are being charged for taking tens of millions of shekels in bribes from Germany company Siemens to rig a tender for turbines.
The German electronics giant has agreed on Monday to pay the Israeli government a NIS 160 million ($42.7 million) penalty for bribing the managers more than ten years ago. Siemens will also appointing an independent monitor to ensure that the company doesn’t engage in unethical practices in Israel in the future.
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The six executives were charged with bribery, money laundering, fraud and breach of trust. The indictment by the Tel Aviv prosecutor said the money amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars were transferred to accounts in Swiss banks or smuggled abroad in cash in suitcases.
The six senior IEC executives are: former senior deputy CEO Jacob Hain, former senior deputy director general David Cohn, former engineering and planning department deputy director Haim Bar-Ner, planning and development department deputy director David Elmakis, former engineering and planning department director Yona Sweater, and former planning department departmental head Zvi Eyal.
The indictment stated: “Between these parties and Siemens and Siemens Israel, relations of give and take were created in which Siemens systematically paid bribes to Israel Electric officeholders so they would use their positions to favor and advance the interests of Siemens in IEC.”
The bribes were allegedly given to rig an IEC tender between the years 1999-2005, when the utility awarded Siemens contracts worth more than 540 million euros ($622 million at the current exchange rate).
According AP, the probe expanded to Oren Aharonson, who was head of Siemens Israel’s energy and industry division, together with his brother-in-law, Shlomo Daniel, and Yitzhak Hirsch, another Siemens Israel manager. It is believed that Aharonson, Daniel and Hirsch each paid additional bribes.
The three agreed to testifying against the accused at the trial.
Siemens admitted to paying $20 million in bribes, but ISA investigators only succeeded in tracing $6 million of that.
AP reports that The indictment is part of a worldwide bribery scandal involving Siemens, Europe’s largest engineering firm. According to an indictment filed against Siemens in the United States, the company paid $1.4 billion in bribes to facilitate global deals.
