Paying the Piper

Former Siemens manager Andreas K., 63, was sentenced on Monday to three-and-a-half years in prison for "very serious incidences of bribery," according to the district attorney's office in Darmstadt.

Horst V., formerly a manager and consultant at the electronics giant, was sentenced to 18 months parole.

The two men were charged with bribing Enel employees with nearly six million euros between 1999 and 2002, in order to win Siemens 450 million euros ($612 million) worth of contracts to deliver turbines for power generators.

Senior public prosecutor Ulrich Busch demanded Monday that Siemens pay a fine of 97.7 million euros ($132.5 million) to the state as a penalty for the Enel corruption case.

The amount is equal to the company's gross profit from the delivery of two turbines to Enel (103.8 million euros), minus a 6.12 million euro fine that had already been assessed during an earlier trial in Milan.

Re-shuffling at the top

The scandal at Siemens continues to cause turmoil at the highest levels of management. It is still unclear to who replace Chairman Klaus Kleinfeld, who announced his resignation on April 25.

The company's head of communications, Janos Gönczöl, announced Monday that he, too, would be resigning.

"It wasn't easy organizing the communications department during this turbulent period, which was full of rumors and speculation," said 49-year-old Gönczöl. "I hope that, with this step, the communications department will have a smoother path."

Stephan Heimbach, current director of the Corporate Affairs department, will replace Gönczöl, Siemens announced.

The daily Financial Times Germany reported Monday that, for the first time ever, a union leader may take over the HR department at Siemens.

Karlheinz Blessing, currently labor director at two German steel companies, could succeed current personnel head Jürgen Radomski, whose contract runs out at the end of the year. Blessing served as secretary of Germany's Social Democratic Party from 1991-1993.