Background

In 2008 Siemens pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and corruption and agreed to pay fines of USD 800m to American and of USD 569m to German authorities. The engineering giant had to face damaged reputation among investors, employees, customers and business partners and thus searched for restoring its image through culture change within the company.

PwC was entrusted with conducting anti-corruption trainings for the company’s sales staff worldwide. As Senior Manager, Honorata was part of PwC Austria training team assigned to conduct trainings for Siemens staff in Austria and Slovakia.

Purpose

• Build a new corporate culture within Siemens.
• Establish an ethical decision-making environment in which bribery does not any longer influence business practices.
• Demonstrate to the shareholders, regulators and competitors that Siemens takes corruption allegations seriously and proactively.

Main Activities

Together with Siemens, PwC developed a manual and training outline laying the groundwork for anti-corruption trainings worldwide, which included:

• a strong tone from the top message delivered by the CEO
• rules to recognize possibilities of illegal action in situations connected to invitations and gifts

Honorata was involved in rolling out trainings in Austria, Germany and Slovakia. While compatible with Austrian training reality, the training manual needed to be adjusted to the training culture of Slovakia together with the local compliance officer. The trainings helped the Siemens team to spearhead efforts for clean business and find out routes for successful implementation.

Achieved Impact

• After training around 300 sales staff improved awareness that corruption, unauthorised gifts and invitations to decision-makers will not be accepted.
• Increased promotion of Siemens products’ technical benefits instead of illicit ways of promotion.
• Anti-corruption and anti-bribery laws have been amended in Austria and in Slovakia in 2009.