Daimler to pay $185 million after admitting bribery | Top Russian news and analysis online | ‘RIA Novosti’ newswire: “The German-based carmaker Daimler has been fined $185 million (137 million euros) after admitting to paying tens of millions of dollars of bribes to foreign governments, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday.
At a hearing on April 1 in a federal court in Washington, Daimler AG’s Russian business Mercedes-Benz Russia SAO, and its German subsidiary, Export and Trade Finance GmbH (ETF), pleaded guilty to committing the offences.
On March 23, the U.S. Department of Justice accused Daimler AG, which produces Mercedes-Benz cars and trucks, of bribing officials in 22 countries, including China, Russia, Thailand, Greece, and Iraq, from 1998 through 2008 to obtain government contracts for car deliveries.
The Russian business daily Kommersant said that in 2000-2005 alone, Russian officials received some 5.02 million euros ($6.7 million) and around 80,000 German marks (more than $54,000) as government contract payoffs from the German auto giant, which accounts for 7.8% of the total worth of the contracts signed during that period.”