German truck maker MAN Group said on Friday that two subsidiaries will pay fines of €75.3 million each to German authorities to resolve corruption charges first disclosed in May this year (here). The fines were imposed against MAN Nutzfahrzeuge AG (the commercial vehicles division) and MAN Turbo AG (the compressors / turbines division) by the public prosecutors’ office in the Munich District Court. The company announced at the same time a €20 million settlement with German authorities for unpaid taxes. MAN’s releases about the settlements are here and here.
The company separately disclosed (here) that two executive board members of MAN Turbo had resigned “to clear the way for new management.” Dr. Gerhard Reiff had been on the board since 2005 and Dr. Stephan Funke since 2007.
MAN’s internal investigation uncovered suspicious payments of €51.6 million relating to around 80 transactions. The payments were found in a number of countries and most were through agents and other intermediaries. The company said it has fired 20 employees and is considering suing them for damages. It didn’t disclose the countries involved or who may have received illegal payments in the form of “so-called referral commissions.” The internal investigation involved “around 70 lawyers, auditors and tax experts . . . working since mid-May to analyze the suspicious payments made in the last ten years at all of MAN’s subgroups.”
MAN is Germany’s second largest truck, bus and diesel-engine manufacturer behind Daimler AG. It reported revenue in 2008 of €14.9 billion and has 51,000 employees worldwide.
The company said it launched a compliance initiative in July. It said it will disclose to prosecutors any future suspected bribery cases and cooperate with them, establish a revamped compliance office on January 1, 2010 reporting directly to the executive board, provide hands-on compliance training to all employees in sales, purchasing, and marketing jobs, use an IT system designed to reveal any suspicious payments, abolish “referral commissions,” and impose due diligence requirements on all agents. MAN said it will also continue talks with various anti-corruption NGOs about joint projects.
The company is listed on the German DAX and its largest shareholder is Volkswagen. MAN AG’s ADRs trade on the over-the-counter pink sheets under the symbol MAGOY.PK. It hasn’t disclosed any investigations by the U.S. Justice Department or SEC.
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