Bombardier exec dismissed over alleged links to bribery
‘I am not a crook,’ Van den Bussche says, vowing to take the case to court
A high-ranking European executive at Bombardier Inc.’s train-making division has been dismissed from the company, as foreign reports allege the departure is linked to recent bribery allegations involving the Quebec-based firm.
Johan Van den Bussche, the company’s chief country representative for Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, “is no longer employed by Bombardier,” company spokesman Marc Laforge said.
Laforge also confirmed that a Bombardier employee was dismissed for breaching the company’s code of ethics, but he would not comment on whether there was a link between the bribery allegations and Van den Bussche’s departure.
“Bombardier did take measures in accordance with its code of ethics and business conduct,” Laforge said in an email.
“We can confirm that Mr. Van den Bussche is no longer employed by Bombardier. However, our human resources policy, like that of many other companies, stipulates that we do not comment on the reasons for departure of any of our employees.”
As first reported by Belgian newspaper De Standaard, Van den Bussche’s dismissal may be linked to allegations of improper payments uncovered by the Dutch railway NS Groep N.V.
An investigation by NS found that an external consultant it had contracted sold confidential information about an upcoming train contract to a Bombardier employee for 7,000 euros (about $10,600 at current exchange rates).
Neither party was named at the time, although NS’s investigation said the Bombardier employee “was responsible for sales in several European countries.”
Contacted by the Financial Post, the lawyer who conducted the investigation for NS, Aldo Verbruggen, was also unwilling to identify any specific names. But when asked about Van den Bussche, Verbruggen did not deny that the Bombardier executive’s departure was connected to his investigation’s findings.
Van den Bussche did not respond to multiple requests by the Financial Post for an interview. However, he told the Belgian newspaper De Tijd that he is fighting his dismissal.
“I am not a crook,” Van den Bussche was quoted as saying in Dutch. “I protest the decision of my dismissal through the courts, as well as the reason and the way it happened. After more than 20 years of service, I had expected something else from my employer.”
The information that was allegedly sold to Bombardier related to a contract for a new fleet of 120 electric trains valued at 510 million euros, or about $770 million. Bombardier didn’t end up bidding for the job, which eventually went to Spanish trainmaker Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF).
“The situation would have been complicated if Bombardier had participated and they were chosen — then we would truly have had a problem,” Verbruggen, a partner at the global law firm Jones Day, said in an interview.
Verbruggen said the violation first came to light in February of this year because the NS consultant accused of selling plans to Bombardier told his wife what he was doing.
“He was so silly as to tell his wife. This is the truth,” Verbruggen said with a laugh.
“And then his wife told her friend who was also married to an employee of (NS) and this guy felt he could not hide this from his employer so he blew the whistle.”
The NS investigation report, obtained by the Financial Post, found that the Bombardier employee invited the consultant to meet with him on or around June 12, 2012, to discuss the electric-train contract, which the consultant was working on.
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 investigation, every page of the document had “CONFIDENTIAL” written across it.
The findings were handed over to the Dutch public prosecutor’s office, which has not yet decided whether to pursue charges.
Bombardier doesn’t break out the size of its business by country, but its plant in Bruges, Belgium, builds some of the company’s most important products, including the high-speed trains that run through the Chunnel, light-rail vehicles for all major cities in the Netherlands and the Flexity Outlook trams operated by the Brussels transport authority.
I protest the decision of my dismissal through the courts, as well as the reason and the way it happened. JOHAN VAN DEN BUSSCHE