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.

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  1. […] But who? There’s only KPMG or PwC, since they’re already entangled with Deloitte and EY. Or maybe they’ll call in Debevoise who will hire one of the above… But, dear Debevoise, be careful and make sure that the firm you hire is really independent. […]

  2. […] software such as SAP for government agencies. I raised the issue a few years back regarding Deloitte’s independence with regard to Siemens when they helped Debevoise conduct an investigation of their massive bribery scandal. I questioned […]

  3. […] software such as SAP for government agencies. I raised the issue a few years back regarding Deloitte’s independence with regard to Siemens when they helped Debevoise conduct an investigation of their massive bribery scandal. I questioned […]

  4. […] is still the pot calling the kettle black in the Siemens scandal. But they’ve done a good job lately getting themselves out of trouble. And even though […]

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