During the period relevant to the indictment , and in order to promote the affairs of Siemens companies in the IEC, Siemens International, through Weiss, Aaronson and other Siemens entities, paid substantial bribe payments of millions of euros to various officials in the IEC (section 23 of the indictment) This is in order to promote the interest of Siemens companies in tenders held by the IEC. According to the indictment, the Siemens companies spread a network of favors, the recipients of which were a series of managers at the IEC, whom Siemens believed had influence in the matter of decision-making in tenders issued by the IEC. Siemens Israel is accused of systematically transferring bribes to those senior IEC executives, including the defendants who were convicted in this proceeding. In order to conceal the source and purpose of the funds, the funds were transferred through shell accounts abroad to various destinations.
The five defendants who were convicted, who were senior IEC officials (David Kohn, Yona Schweitzer, Yaakov Hain, Haim Brenner, and Zvi Eyal), confessed, as part of the plea bargain, that the bribe money was taken by them for their contribution to Siemens' global win in various engagements with the IEC.
The projects in which Siemens contracted with the IEC, and in respect of which the bribe was given, according to the indictment, are three. The first was a tender for the purchase and maintenance of gas turbines issued by the IEC in 1999. Subsequently, the tender was canceled, and at the end of the day, during the period relevant to the charge, the IEC's tender committees approved agreements for the purchase of five conductors and maintenance services in the amount of close to €600 million.
The second project, the DMS project, relates to the IEC's tender for the purchase of a system for routing and controlling electricity distribution (DMS system). The tender was canceled by the IEC in 2000. In 2002, the IEC's tender committee decided to accept Siemens' bid, and approved the acquisition at a cost of about €80 million.