Siemens pledges US$100m to fight corruption after subsidiary’s World Bank ban

German engineering giant Siemens has agreed to spend US$100 million over 15 years helping non-profit organisations worldwide that promote business integrity and fighting corruption, after falling short on ethics. The announcement is part of an agreement with the World Bank that will see Siemens “refrain from bidding” for the Bank’s business until this coming December (2010). This, said the agreement’s text, followed “the company’s acknowledged past misconduct in its global business” – in December 2008 it agreed to pay fines and penalties of around €1 billion in the USA and Germany over bribing public officials. It also followed a World Bank investigation into corruption in a project in Russia involving a Siemens subsidiary. This led to the Bank debarring Limited Liability Company Siemens (OOO Siemens) from its projects for four years “for having engaged in fraudulent and corrupt practices” before 2007 in the bank-financed Moscow Urban Transport Project.