(Bloomberg) -- A US subsidiary of Siemens Energy AG agreed to pay $104 million to resolve a criminal investigation into misappropriating confidential information from competitors to win a bidding process.
The US Justice Department accused Siemens of “illicitly obtaining” confidential information from competitors General Electric Co. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. “to obtain an unfair competitive advantage” in a bidding process involving a gas turbine plant project in Chesterfield, Virginia. The company, which didn’t receive credit for voluntarily reporting to the agency, pleaded guilty, according to a Monday federal court filing in the Eastern District of Virginia.
The agreement “resolves a matter related to the misconduct of former employees which took place more than five years ago,” Siemens said in a statement. “The company proactively discovered the conduct in 2020 and voluntarily disclosed it to its customer and two affected competitors whose claims it subsequently settled.”
In March 2019, utility company Dominion Energy Inc. opened a bidding process for companies to provide equipment and services for the turbine project, which it expected would cost as much as $500 million, according to a statement of facts filed in federal court.
The government said that several former Siemens employees and an ex-Dominion staffer conspired to misappropriate confidential information from GE and MHI. Siemens funneled its competitors’ information through numerous private email accounts, including one held by a staffer’s wife, according to the court documents.
In May 2019, the Dominion employee shared bid amounts from GE and MHI with Siemens, according to the court records. As a result, the company lowered its bid to Dominion, records show.
Siemens Energy is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 5. The company has also agreed to three years of organizational probation.
(Updates with probation as part of agreement.)
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