Strategy without a chapter

Siemens board member behind bars

The corruption scandal at the oldest German electrical concern Siemens has entered a new dimension. Yesterday, during another search at the company's headquarters, the current member of the board, 50-year-old Johannes Feldmeier, was arrested and sent to pre-trial detention. He came under suspicion in connection with what is believed to be illegal payments of many millions of euros to one of the members of the company's labor council. Top managers showed such small signs of attention to loyal “fighters” for the just cause of the working people. The Munich prosecutor's office announced yesterday that it is bringing charges against Feldmeier and several other Siemens executives for illegal expenditure of the company's funds. The lawyer of the arrested man yesterday rejected all charges brought against his client.

As the Nuremberg prosecutor's office said in a statement, "there are suspicions that from 2001 to 2005, money from the Siemens budget went to a consulting firm, from which no services were received in return." The accused, according to investigators, are directly responsible for this. At the same time, the investigative authorities have not yet reported which of the top managers of the concern have been investigated.

Officially, Siemens management is on the side of the investigation, providing assistance to it. A Siemens spokesman last night explained some details related to the case of the arrested Feldmeier. We are talking about a scam surrounding the society of independent enterprise workers. This organization is something like an independent trade union, which unites only members of the Siemens workforce. By the way, to Wilhelm Shelsky, the organizer and inspirer of this society, whose task was to protect the interests of workers, Siemens management paid an additional 14 million euros for their contributions. Although the detectives formally noted that Shelsky’s offshore consulting company did not provide any services to the concern for this amount, such services, of course, were provided in full. The main ones are compliance with management's demands and willingness to make concessions. An agreement was drawn up in full form with Shelsky, who was sent to a pre-trial detention center back in February, and Feldmeier himself signed it on behalf of Siemens employers. The agreement was in force until the summer of 2006 and was terminated when, during the audit, neither Shelsky nor Feldmeier were able to clearly explain its meaning.

It is interesting that the company's independent workers society is represented on the Siemens supervisory board. As a member of the board, the arrested Feldmeier oversees the IT department and is also responsible for the concern’s activities in Europe. Born in Bavaria, he has worked for Siemens since 1979, where he developed his career from an economic planner in the data processing sector to the group's chief strategist. Since August 2003, Feldmeier has been a member of the board of directors of Siemens. For some time he even served as a professor at the Technical University of Berlin, where he lectured on management strategy. Among other notable aspects of Feldmeier, it is known that he was reputed to be the crown prince of the former head of the board of Siemens, Heinrich von Pierer.

Yuri Shpakov, Berlin