The Bribery Scandal At Siemens AG
Report for Case 1: The Bribery Scandal At Siemens AG
Siemens, originated by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske in 1847, now is one of the top companies which major business area is electrical engineering, and has millions of employees and operations in around 190 countries in the whole world. However, in 2007, two former managers of Siemens AG were proved to be guilty by a German court. The court accused them for giving money from company to employees of Enel Spa and asking for contracts in return. Besides that, earlier in 2006, Siemens was convicted for bribing AUB which is a small union in order to receive the support from its policies. Numbers of the bribery scandals appeared in such a short pried of time, which led to a huge damage to the reputation of Siemens. Till December of 2008, Siemens AG has already agreed to pay more than €1 billion fine.
Despite the fact that bribery is illegal in all countries, bribery starts to become a universal and morally acceptable phenomenon in recent years, and sometimes it is regarded as the only way to solving some problems. For example, companies in Mexico have to pay the postman monthly to prevent their mail missing. Besides that, in some developed countries, bribery cannot be avoided as well. For instance, several officials of the international Olympic Committee were fired because of accepting bribery for helping Salt Lake City to host the Winter Olympics in 2002. In this report, bribery and the case which is about the bribery scandal at Siemens AG will be discussed.
It is certain that bribery is prohibited in law all over the world, whereas whether it is ethical or not depends on individuals. Although numbers of companies believed that bribery is only part of cost of doing business and it enables businessmen to get their contracts easier, bribery is illegal, unethical and cannot be considered as a cost of doing business.
As author mentioned in our book, bribery fails three questions of ethical corporate
Siemens, originated by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske in 1847, now is one of the top companies which major business area is electrical engineering, and has millions of employees and operations in around 190 countries in the whole world. However, in 2007, two former managers of Siemens AG were proved to be guilty by a German court. The court accused them for giving money from company to employees of Enel Spa and asking for contracts in return. Besides that, earlier in 2006, Siemens was convicted for bribing AUB which is a small union in order to receive the support from its policies. Numbers of the bribery scandals appeared in such a short pried of time, which led to a huge damage to the reputation of Siemens. Till December of 2008, Siemens AG has already agreed to pay more than €1 billion fine.
Despite the fact that bribery is illegal in all countries, bribery starts to become a universal and morally acceptable phenomenon in recent years, and sometimes it is regarded as the only way to solving some problems. For example, companies in Mexico have to pay the postman monthly to prevent their mail missing. Besides that, in some developed countries, bribery cannot be avoided as well. For instance, several officials of the international Olympic Committee were fired because of accepting bribery for helping Salt Lake City to host the Winter Olympics in 2002. In this report, bribery and the case which is about the bribery scandal at Siemens AG will be discussed.
It is certain that bribery is prohibited in law all over the world, whereas whether it is ethical or not depends on individuals. Although numbers of companies believed that bribery is only part of cost of doing business and it enables businessmen to get their contracts easier, bribery is illegal, unethical and cannot be considered as a cost of doing business.
As author mentioned in our book, bribery fails three questions of ethical corporate