Two former managers of Siemens' power division are to appear in court next month on charges they paid six million euros (78 million dollars) in bribes to obtain major contracts from Italian power giant Enel, the court said on Monday.
The trial is to begin at the regional court in Darmstadt on March 13, a spokeswoman for the court said, confirming a report in Monday's Financial Times Deutschland.
The former managers are accused of paying six million euros in bribes to two managers of Enel between 1999 and 2002 in order to secure big gas turbine orders. If found guilty, the managers could face prison sentences of up to 10 years or heavy fines. The Darmstadt trial will run parallel to a separate investigation into allegations of widespread bribery and embezzlement at Siemens' telecoms division.
In November, German prosecutors launched a massive probe at Siemens, raiding the offices and homes of a number of Siemens employees amid suspicions of embezzlement, bribery and tax evasion.
A number of current and former employees at the fixed networks division, including top-ranking managers, have been held for questioning on the matter. Prosecutors allege that the employees concerned are suspected of collaborating to open slush fund accounts abroad and of operating a system to embezzle company money.
Prosecutors put the sum held in the accounts at 200 million euros and some of that money may have been used as bribes to obtain contracts abroad. Siemens itself said that it had uncovered as much as 420 million euros in suspicious payments as part of the probe.
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