On August 22, Hao Ruiqiang, the president and CEO of Siemens
China spoke out on the alleged bribery scandal in Shanghai. He
said, "Last year we dismissed 20 employees from Siemens China
because they were found to be involved in some practices that the
company cannot tolerate." He emphasized, "For bribery and other
corruption, we have zero tolerance."
This was also a response to the new CEO of Siemens AG Peter
Loescher's previous statement against any unlawful practices. Mr.
Loescher is now on his first visit to China, which will last two
days.
A German business magazine on August 20 reported that Siemens
headquarters' bribery scandal had affected its Chinese branch and
about half of Siemens China's businesses were connected with
bribery. Hao argued that the German magazine's report was not in
good form, given Siemens China is still under investigation and
audit.?
Meanwhile, Siemens AG is also being investigated. The exposed
business bribery scandal has damaged Siemens' reputation and put
the company in serious trouble. Peter Loescher, after taking over
the CEO role, said that his top priority would be to make Siemens's
operations lawful and stressed that he would focus on dealing with
the matters of bribery.??
Mr. Loescher promised that his company would offer full
cooperation on the bribery investigations. He also said that it is
his company's policy to dismiss anyone who breaks laws or
regulations and encouraged all the managers to carry out the
policy.
To deal with illegal business practices, Siemens will appoint
supervisors to monitor the procedures of the company's internal
operations. It will regularly train employees on laws and
regulations and hire independent and experienced law firms from
outside to strengthen management.
(China.org.cn by Pang Li August 23, 2007)
