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CORRUPTION

MAN replaces managers after bribery scandal

Five months after the exposure of alleged bribery and corruption at the German utility vehicle-maker MAN, the firm is overhauling the senior management in its sales and marketing division, a company spokesman said on Saturday.

Published: 10 October 2009 16:44 CEST
MAN replaces managers after bribery scandal
Photo: DPA

The Munich-based firm, one of Germany’s biggest industrial companies, had all but replaced the top of its sales and marketing teams, according to a report in Der Spiegel magazine, subsequently confirmed by the company.

Three top managers had already been fired, while about half a dozen more had been suspended and would be replaced in coming weeks.

They came under the spotlight in May when investigators swooped on 59 MAN sites and seven homes in searches that lasted about a week. More than 100 people were questioned.

Prosecutors said bribes totalling millions of euros had been paid both inside and outside Germany to secure the sales of trucks and buses.

The spokesman said the company wanted a fresh start in the tainted divisions. MAN had examined the situation carefully before taking the measures, he stressed. And he added the sackings were separate from any criminal proceedings.

Prosecutions are likely to go ahead, though not against the top managers in the company.

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MUNICH

Four injured as WWII bomb explodes near Munich train station

Four people were injured, one of them seriously, when a World War II bomb exploded at a building site near Munich's main train station on Wednesday, emergency services said.

Published: 1 December 2021 16:41 CET
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich.
Smoke rises after the WWII bomb exploded on a building site in Munich. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Privat

Construction workers had been drilling into the ground when the bomb exploded, a spokesman for the fire department said in a statement.

The blast was heard several kilometres away and scattered debris hundreds of metres, according to local media reports.

Images showed a plume of smoke rising directly next to the train tracks.

Bavaria interior minister Joachim Herrmann told Bild that the whole area was being searched.

Deutsche Bahn suspended its services on the affected lines in the afternoon.

Although trains started up again from 3pm, the rail operator said there would still be delays and cancellations to long-distance and local travel in the Munich area until evening. 

According to the fire service, the explosion happened near a bridge that must be passed by all trains travelling to or from the station.

The exact cause of the explosion is unclear, police said. So far, there are no indications of a criminal act.

WWII bombs are common in Germany

Some 75 years after the war, Germany remains littered with unexploded ordnance, often uncovered during construction work.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about WWII bomb disposals in Germany

However, most bombs are defused by experts before they explode.

Last year, seven World War II bombs were found on the future location of Tesla’s first European factory, just outside Berlin.

Sizeable bombs were also defused in Cologne and Dortmund last year.

In 2017, the discovery of a 1.4-tonne bomb in Frankfurt prompted the evacuation of 65,000 people — the largest such operation since the end of the war in Europe in 1945.

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