Two former managers for the engineering conglomerate Siemens told a German court on Tuesday that they participated in paying bribes of roughly 6 million euros in Italy as part of the company’s plan to anchor itself in the booming market for power generation equipment.
But the two men, Horst Vigener and Andreas Kley, mounted a vigorous defense of the payments, arguing that Siemens benefited greatly from them. Both men also contended that they did not violate a German law forbidding bribery of public officials abroad because the Italian company in question, Enel, was already effectively privatized.
The Darmstadt trial is one of a host of legal difficulties facing Siemens, a pillar of German industry, that has shaken the country unlike any other recent business scandal. One involving its telecommunication arms surfaced late last year, while another involving employee representatives emerged last month.
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