Yesterday the Wall Street Journal came out with an article that alleged that the current CFO of Siemens and one or more members of the board of directors at Siemens may have known about the corrupt practices taking place in both the wired and wireless divisions of Siemens for multiple years.

Today, the CFO and the board members mentioned came out to deny that they had any previous knowledge of the payoffs that were provided via fictional consultants.

Several employees of Siemens were arrested last fall and a few have agreed to cooperate with authorities and according to the WSJ article fingered current CFO Joe Kaeser.

German investigators have previously announced that Heinz-Joachim Neuburger, the former CFO and Kaeser’s predecessor, is a suspect.

The cooperative witnesses indicated that Mr. Kaeser saw some of their corrupt practices while he was involved in the wireless-telecom-equipment unit where he was an executive manager.

Tomorrow shareholders convene for an annual meeting where they will vote on Senior management’s actions. Those shareholders are not likely to be happy with the situation that has revealed that about $544 million of suspicious transactions had been found, which could result in writing those previously expensed items back on the books for tax purposes.

You can’t deduct a bribe.

Technorati tags: Siemens investigation, can’t deduct a bribe on your taxes, wireless industry corruption, telecom corruption

Page Popularity for Site: 21% [?]

Its is being reported that Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, was questioned with his attorneys present, by investigators presumably from the Department of Justice that is investigating Apple’s backdating of stock options.

Apple took an $84 million charge relating to the issue last quarter and internal company investigators cleared Jobs of any wrong doing, but Department of Justice Investigators are digging further for their own reasons.  Steve Jobs has not admitted to any wrong doing and several senior Apple insiders have left the company, even though they do not admit to any wrong doing either.

The back dating scandal at Apple does not yet seem material compared to Apple’s bottom line, but investigators unlike auditors have to look into the criminal aspect as well.

Page Popularity for Site: 12% [?]

Gridlock News: Guilty! Skilling and Lay both Guilty

Reactions to the Enron criminal trial verdict - May. 25, 2006: “Enron founder Kenneth Lay was found guilty on six counts of conspiracy and fraud and former CEO Jeff Skilling was found guilty on 19 counts by a Houston jury after the trial in the biggest of the corporate fraud cases.”

Lay was separately found guilty of 4 counts of false statements and fraud.

Skilling and Lay are looking at 20 to 30 years in prison each.

Page Popularity for Site: 11% [?]