Deutsche Telekom’s chief has been let off the hook by prosecutors investigating a fraud at the telco’s Balkans subsidiaries.
Prosecutors dropped charges against Rene Obermann yesterday following a three month investigation into the DT chief’s involvement in an alleged €30 million bribery scandal involving the telco’s businesses in Macedonia and Montenegro, Sueddeutsche.de reports.
The case was dropped due to a lack of evidence, the news site said.
Deutsche Telekom hotly denied Obermann was involved in the 2005 fraud after prosecutors raided the CEO’s home in August, and showed its faith by renewing the chief’s contract for a further five years last month.
Obermann was one of eight people investigated by German prosecutors at the request of US investigators probing whether dividend payments to Makedonski Telekom (MakTel) amounted to a bribe to keep competitors at bay.
The telco’s businesses in Montenegro and Macedonia are thought to have signed fake contracts worth €32 million, Bloomberg reported.
Charges against two of the remaining suspects were also dropped, Sueddeutsche.de added.