Siemens, the German engineering giant, agreed Monday to pay a record total of $1.6 billion to American and European authorities to settle charges that it routinely used bribes and slush funds to secure huge public works contracts around the world.  For the story click here.

Yet suprisisngly Siemens avoids either a guilty plea or a conviction for bribery, allowing it to maintain its status as a “responsible contractor” with the United States Defense Logistics Agency.  Without this benchmark certification, Siemens could have been excluded from public procurement contracts in the United States and elsewhere. German authorities are preparing a similar certification.

So despite the DOJ pounding the lectern about Siemens despicable “systematic global corruption” it just boils down to a checkbook case.

Well, perhaps not so suprisingly.  Siemens just cut an $1.6 billion electric generation deal with the Iraq government, has significant R&D partnerships in the U.S., and Germany provides significant financial
backing for NATO operations in Afghanistan and will shortly be asked to do more on the ground there.  So one can only surmise that politics trumped and determined the outcome of this case.