Is Deloitte Sufficiently Independent of Siemens?

A while back I wrote about KPMG and the Siemens bribery scandal.

Munich, Dec 22, 2006
“Debevoise & Plimpton LLP – the law firm retained by the Audit Committee of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG in connection with current investigations by the Munich Department of Public Prosecution – has already begun their work. They will be assisted by forensic accountants from the international organization Deloitte Touche Tomahtsu.”

Does Deloitte still have a business alliance with Siemens to implement and integrate SAP? Does Deloitte know whether any of their foreign “offices” has a business alliance with Siemens? Did Debevoise see a thorough conflicts check? Knowing SAP, the project described below may still be going on…

It seems that in 2003, a former Transnet official faced prosecution after he allegedly accepted bribes worth more than R1-million from a company that was part of a Siemens-led consortium which won a major contract from the parastatal. Anver Hendricks, former national maintenance and support manager for the National Port Authority, a division of Transnet, was formally charged with corruption in the Cape Town Regional Court for accepting bribes from the parastatal’s suppliers.In 2001 Southern Focus was a partner in a consortium, put together by Siemens Business Services (SBS), that won a contract to install SAP, a major computer software system, for the port authority. Southern Focus’s relationship with SBS, which is a division of German-owned Siemens Southern Africa, goes back to 2000.

The port authority decided to install the SAP system in 1999 to operate its financial system. The Mail & Guardian of South Africa reported that the SAP system deal cost the parastatal well over R40-million but was not put on open tender. The Siemens-led consortium that won the deal included a Deloitte subsidiary.