Ex-Siemens chief Heinz-Joachim Neuburger, aged 62, was found dead. Reports say that he committed suicide. The timing of his death following the meeting between Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and his German counterpart Wolfgang Schauble is seen as a point of interest. During this meeting, a Greek journalist dredged up the bribery scandal again in  a question.

Neuburger, once a very respected manager for the Siemens Group fell from grace when it was found that he had bribed customers. A Munich court had fined him the record sum of 15 million euros – the biggest in Germanys corporate history. An appeal was filed, and in August 2014, a settlement was reached and Neuburger was finally called to pay 2.5 euros in damages, a figure approved at Siemen’s annual meeting on January 27, two days after the Greek election.

Unlike other people embroiled in the scandal, Neuburger contested that he had failed to tackle corruption in the company.

Background

The Siemens bribery scandal in Greece was a corruption and bribery scandal over deals between Siemens AG and Greek government officials during the 2004 Summer Olympic Games in Athens concerning security systems and other purchases by the country’s telecommunications provider in the 1990s. It is alleged that the bribes could have been as high as 100 milion euros to procure state contracts. A few socialist PASOK members acting as individuals are believed to have been involved though no evidence has come to light. A Greek prosecutor filed charges on July 1, 2008, for money laundering and bribery. Former transport and communications minister in 1998, Tasos Mantelis, admitted that 200,000 German marks were deposited in a Swiss bank account from Siemens in 1998, allegedly for funding his election campaign. A further deposit of 250,000 German marks was made to the same bank account in 2000 which Mantelis claims is from an unknown source.