Greece has authorized its finance and justice ministers to seek an out-of-court settlement with German conglomerate Siemens AG (SI) in the coming days over bribery allegations, a senior government official said Thursday.
“Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos and Justice Minister Miltiadis Papaioannou were authorized by the cabinet to seek an out-of-court settlement with Siemens,” a cabinet official said. “There was no specific amount discussed regarding the settlement but there was talk of EUR200 million to EUR250 million as being an indicative order of magnitude.”
Greece claims that bribes paid by Siemens to various Greek governments to secure state contracts from the late 1990s up to 2009 have cost Greek taxpayers some EUR2 billion.
Siemens has previously said it would cooperate with the Greek government in investigating the bribery charges after they were made public in a special parliamentary investigation in January. Earlier this year it had rejected the allegations.
(source: Dow Jones)
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