Ethics Newsline®

MUNICH
Siemens, the giant German engineering and electronics firm, last week hired a new general counsel to help deal with the ethical and legal fallout from a series of bribery probes.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Peter Solmssen, the general counsel at General Electric’s health-care division, will become Siemens’ top compliance official, a newly created post with overall responsibility for all legal and compliance issues.

Siemens’ board also appointed Andreas Pohlman as the new chief compliance officer, CNN reports.

Both appointments come as investigators in Germany, Italy, and the United States are probing bribery and corruption charges against the firm, according to an analysis from BusinessWeek. Employees of the firm are alleged to have taken millions in bribes from companies hungry to land telecommunication deals with Siemens, one of Europe’s biggest conglomerates.

Bloomberg reports that the appointments were part of an effort to tighten anticorruption rules and improve the company’s image. Various ethics issues prompted the resignations of former CEO Klaus Kleinfeld and supervisory board head Heinrich von Pierer.

Siemens’ new CEO, Peter Loescher, who joined the company in July, has made ethics reform one of his top priorities.