Bombardier worker fired after Dutch consultant bribed
Confidential data on train contract was sold, investigation finds
A Bombardier Inc. employee has been fired for breaching the company’s code of ethics after a consultant at a Dutch railway received 7,000 euros — or about $9,700 — for providing confidential information about an upcoming train contract.
“Unfortunately, one of our employees, who is now an ex-employee, did breach our code of ethics,” Bombardier spokesman Marc Laforge said in an interview.
“This is totally inappropriate and unacceptable conduct with regards to our values, so we did address the situation following our finding and we took the appropriate measures.”
The employee’s dismissal came after an investigation by the Dutch railway NS Groep N.V. found that an external consultant it had contracted had sold confidential information to a Bombardier employee in mid-2012.
The information related to a contract for a new fleet of 120 electric trains valued at 510 million euros.
Neither party has been named, and it is unclear where the employee was based, although NS Groep’s report says the Bombardier employee “was responsible for sales in several European countries.”
“NS has strict standards of integrity,” the railway said in a press release from May 29. “The observed practices are unacceptable to NS and in flagrant violation of its principles.”
NS added that it immediately broke ties with the consultant as soon as it discovered signs of wrongdoing, and it appears this was a one-time breach.
The contract eventually went to Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF), a Spanish trainmaker. Bombardier, which has done work for NS in the past, didn’t end up bidding.
“At the end of the day we did not bid on the project, not because the employee had some kind of information, but simply because for us the commercial trends were not satisfying,” Laforge said.
NS first got wind of the violation in February of this year after the consultant’s wife reportedly told a friend about the payment. The friend’s husband, who worked for a division of NS, told his supervisor, who then took the allegations up the ladder to the company’s board.
According to the findings of NS’s investigation, the Bombardier employee invited the consultant to meet with him on or around June 12, 2012 to talk about the electric-train contract, which the consultant was involved in.
During the discussion, the Bombardier employee asked the consultant to share more information about NS’s needs and preferences, and agreed to pay him 7,000 euros.
A few days later, the consultant provided a 41-page document of internal research.
According to the NS findings, every page had “CONFIDENTIAL” written across it.
This is not the first time Bombardier’s name has been associated with reported allegations of corruption.
CBC’s French-language service, Radio-Canada, reported in January that the Montreal-based company was investigated in South Korea but never charged for allegedly offering gifts and trips to civil servants and politicians who helped it win an elevated-train contract.
And the CBC reported in April that South Africa’s corruption watchdog was investigating allegations of bribery relating to a $3-billion train contract that was awarded to a consortium involving Bombardier. Bombardier has denied all of the allegations.
The train-making division is considered essential to the company’s future as it works to get its troubled C-Series jetliner to market.
Bombardier is preparing to spin off a minority stake in the transportation unit with an initial public offering planned for the fourth quarter of this year.
“This IPO is expected to crystallize the value of Bombardier Transportation and further strengthen our financial position while preserving flexibility to participate if we wish in further industry consolidation,” CEO Alain Bellem are said when the plan was announced in May.