da: International Herald Tribune
At a 1999 meeting in Germany, board members at Daimler, one of the world’s largest vehicle manufacturers, took a step that could have saved the company the guilty pleas and $185 million in civil and criminal payments it agreed to in a U.S. courtroom Thursday.
Before a federal judge, Justice Department prosecutor John Darden outlined some of the dirty laundry of the company best known for its elegant Mercedes-Benz autos. His account and court papers reveal a pattern of bribery that for many decades helped fuel the company’s sales and illicitly added millions of dollars to its profits.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon accepted guilty pleas from Daimler lawyer Gero Herrmann on behalf of Daimler’s Russian and German subsidiaries and deferred prosecution agreements from parent Daimler AG and its Chinese subsidiary. Together, Daimler and its subsidiaries agreed to pay the U.S. government $93.6 million in criminal fines and $91.4 million in disgorgement of profits to settle a civil complaint by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The securities commission said Daimler and its subsidiaries made at…