On December 13, 2011, the DOJ filed a criminal indictment against the defendants, alleging conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery and books and records provisions of the FCPA, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The DOJ also brought substantive wire fraud allegations. On December 15, 2011, the government sent a letter to the court stating that the defendants all reside overseas and that none of the defendants were currently in custody.
In September 2015, Andras Truppel appeared before the district court and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA. Truppel is scheduled to be sentenced in April 2017. Truppel was scheduled to be sentenced in April 2017, but sentencing was postponed due to a medical condition. There are no publicly available docket entries indicating whether sentencing has occurred.
On December 22, 2017, Eberhard Reichert appeared before the S.D.N.Y. and pleaded not guilty to the DOJ’s charges against him. Reichert was arrested in Croatia in September 2017 and agreed to be extradited to the United States. In March 2018, he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA’s anti-bribery, internal controls, and books-and-records provisions. His sentencing is currently pending. The remaining six co-defendants remain at large.
In a parallel enforcement action, the SEC filed a civil complaint on December 13, 2011, alleging similar facts against many of the defendants in the DOJ case, excluding Eberhard Reichert and Miguel Czysch, but including Bernd Regendantz. Regendantz was the only defendant to settle with the SEC when the civil complaint and criminal indictment were filed, and he is the only SEC defendant that is not included in the DOJ Indictment.
Previous DOJ and SEC actions against Siemens AG and its subsidiaries were filed and settled in 2008, in part based on the alleged conduct in Argentina. In the criminal action, all corporate defendants pleaded guilty (Siemens Argentina to conspiring to falsify Siemens AG’s books; Siemens AG to wire fraud, books and records, and internal controls; Siemens Bangladesh and Siemens Venezuela to FCPA bribery charges), and agreed to pay criminal fines totaling $450 million. In the parallel SEC action against the corporate defendants, Siemens AG agreed to disgorge more than $350 million in ill-gotten profits. Siemens also settled with German authorities, agreeing to pay a total of €596 million in penalties.
