Former Infineon Executive Returns Bribe

A former executive of the German chip and semi-conductor manufacturer Infineon has handed over a bribe he took from a Swiss firm, a company spokesman said Saturday. Harald Eggers, currently head of a Swiss technology company Unaxis, is accused by prosecutors in the southern city of Munich of having taken a bribe of 50,000 euros ($60,000) from the business agency BF Consulting. German newsmagazine Der Spiegel put the sum at $50,000. "Mr Eggers has paid back the amount the group was asking for," an Infineon spokesman said. According to the prosecutor's office the former head of the memory division of the Bavarian computer chip giant Andreas von Zitzewitz took 259,000 euros ($311,000) from BF Consulting in return for business favors. Infineon said Friday it was calling in outside investigators to examine the company's internal system of checks and controls as the bribery and corruption scandal threatened to snowball. Infineon said in a statement that the aim of the probe was to "uncover any possible weakness in the company's internal controls that might have prevented the alleged events from being uncovered at an earlier stage."