Volvo CEO Pays €500,000 to Settle MAN Corruption Probe

Volvo Cars Corp. CEO Hakan Samuelsson has agreed to pay €500,000 to German charities to settle an inquiry into possible links to corporate corruption when he headed commercial truckmaker MAN SE in 2005-2009, Bloomberg News reports.

German investigators launched an extensive probe five years ago into charges that MAN bribed customers in Slovenia between 2002 and 2009 to win truck contracts. MAN paid a €150 million fine in 2009 to settle the probe, in which several of the company's managers were indicted.

Last September German officials opened a new inquiry into Samuelsson's ties to the original allegations. The investigation grew out of testimony in a related trial that Samuelsson had been advised in 2006 about corruption involving MAN's business operations in Slovenia but apparently took no action.