Alstom directors arrested on suspicion of fraud

[ailsa]

BBC news reports that three company directors at Alstom have been arrested on suspicion of bribery and corruption. The serious fraud office alleges that bribes were paid in order to win contracts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8584776.stm

 

[Dolive22]

It's shocking. My jaw actually dropped, and I don't remember that hapenning before.

Do we know what the contracts were for?

 

[Burkitt]

Do we know what the contracts were for?

According to the article they were in Singapore, Indonesia Venezuela and Brazil in the late 1990s. In one specific case, it was alleged that Swiss and Brazilian police had met to discuss suspicions that Alstom paid $6.8m (£4.5m) to help win a $45m contract to expand Sao Paulo's underground network.

Paul

 

[j0hn0]

shocked at businessmen being corrupt?

That actually shocks me more

 

[royaloak]

Maybe they are trying to give the politicians a run for their money

 

[WatcherZero]

Relieves embarassment on BAE a bit.

 

[Dolive22]

For some reason I just never had Alstom down as bent. I wasn't aware of the extent of their operations in the shadier parts of the world, and I didn't know how old the allegations were.

 

[WatcherZero]

They changed their name didnt they? It used to be some longer unpronouncable french name and they simplified it to Alstom. What year was that?

 

[merlodlliw]

Here we just pay bonuses for failure, that's legal.

 

[ailsa]

They changed their name didnt they? It used to be some longer unpronouncable french name and they simplified it to Alstom. What year was that?

Shamelessly copy-and-pasted from Wiki:

1928 - The beginning of Alsthom was from the merger of Thomson-Houston and Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques. (SACM)

The same is on the Alstom website, but as a Flash presentation, not so easy to drag and drop


Edit: My French is atrocious but I think that means "Alsatian Construction Society".

 

[WatcherZero]

Ahh it was the 1989 name change I was thinking of thanks, must have just been the power generation unit of the company that changed however.

 

[Burkitt]

Alstom aren't the first major railway company to be done for bribery either. In 2008 Siemens was fined $1.6 billion for paying bribes totalling $1.4 billion including to Venezuelan officials to give them railway contracts.

Paul