Bernd Eitel, director of media and public relations of Siemens China corporate communications, has clarified to the local media that Siemens China has not been investigated, as some media earlier reported.
Instead, Eitel says, some business consultants of the company are being investigated.
Eitel says that as a company, Siemens China has not been investigated by the Chinese government, but in some small cases in certain provinces like Jilin, some employees may have been called in for a discussion. However, he adds that the employees are witnesses instead of defendants.
Eitel says that they have begun to monitor all their consulting companies, namely, third parties that are engaged in providing sales-related consulting and guidance to Siemens. The company calls these companies their business consultants and says that they are enforcing a new business consulting agreement with these parties, which asks all the business consulting agreements to be approved by both the Standard Conformity Office and the CEO of Siemens.
Xiao Weiqun, PR manager of Siemens China, says that they have strengthened internal audits following the investigation in Germany and up till now, they have conducted 60 internal queries. Eitel says that they initiated the 60 internal audits, but this does not mean that these are cases of wrongdoing. However, the company has identified 20 employees who had allegedly committed undisclosed dubious acts.
