Siemens Israel Ltd., a subsidiary of German conglomerate Siemens AG, has agreed to a plea deal that would put an end to criminal proceedings against the company, sources familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity told . As part of the deal, Siemens Israel would plead guilty to conspiring to commit a crime and pay a fine of over $17 million (60 million ILS), the sources added.
An Israeli court indicted Siemens in May 2016.
The current $17 million fine comes on top of $45.5 million (160 million NIS) fine paid by Siemens AG in May 2016. Siemens AG also paid $25.6 million (90 million NIS) to settle a civil suit filed by Israel Electric Corporation in conjunction with the criminal investigation. In total, Siemens AG paid more than $88 million (310 million NIS) to settle the case against it.
The plea deal with Siemens softens the original charges filed against the company, which included bribery, fraud, breach of confidence and money laundering. The deal would allow Siemens to continue its operation in Israel, heavily tilted to Israeli governmental tenders.
The company had admitted to paying $2.5 million in bribes to top executives at Israeli power utility Israel Electric Corporation in return for information and for favoring Siemens in bids valued at €700 million between the years 2001 and 2005.
In 2016, an Israeli court convicted five executives of power utility Israel Electric Corporation for fraud, money laundering, and accepting bribes.
An early draft of the indictment of the executives published by Calcalist in 2015 stated that during the period Siemens won a tender to supply the power utility with three turbines valued at €600 million.
Siemens is slowly returning to full operation in Israel. In September, Calcalist reported that Siemens had won a government tender to provide and maintain 330 electric train cars to the Israeli national railway company Israel Railways Ltd., a deal valued at little under $1 billion.
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